l~.~,~n -B 11D

UNIVERSITEIT VAN WES-KAAPLAND

UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE

Hierdie boek moet terugbesorg word voor of op

die laaste datum hieronder aangegee.

This book must be returned on or before the

last date shown below.

1-97J<07Q(0120 OG(O'"

. . _-- _ ..;.,/ .1q~:..'..,\·:_L.£2 .~.!.:~:-.b~)

~J~;i'f? I!·~.l!:l~.~,~n

~.""".....,_~

-B 11D

*30001005091469*

1~'I"I~ml'~~I~'I~m~~I~m"I'~1http://etd.uwc.ac.za/

SOME SOCIOLINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF/

SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF XHOSA

by

SYDNEY ZANEMVULA ZOTWANA

Submitted to satisfy the LequiLements fOL the degLee of

MasteL of ALts in the DepaLtment of African Languages and

Lite~atuLes, Faculty of ALts, at the

UniveLsity of Cape Town

Supervisor ML DeLek Gowlett

Date DecembeL 1987

http://etd.uwc.ac.za/

1HbUNIVERSITEITVAN Wf.5· KAAPlAND

BIBUOTt:El<

;:;e~~?:?v1f;(UNIVERSITY OF WE "':t.:~~:·nJ·''~,..;.':


(i)

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Winifred Nobantu and

to the fond memory of my deceased father, Edward Bomvana,

whos~ efforts and sacrifices are behind everything achieved.


(ii)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend my sincerest gratituqe to a number of

people whose assistance and encouragement made it possiblefor me to finish this thesis.

First of all I have to thank Mr Solomon Chaphole, ActingHead of Department of

the University of CapeAfrican Languages and Literatures at

Town. Without his comments and

suggestions on my initial proposal, control of the work

would have been very difficult and more time would have beenlost.

I wish to thank my supervisor, Mr Derek Gowlett, without

whose guidance and encouragement completion of this thesis

would not -have been possible. He meticulously scrutinised

the work and drew my attention to a number of aspects

related to both content and presentation.

My thanks also go to the Post-Graduate Bursaries Section of

the University of Cape Town for the Lestrade SCholarship Iwas given.

I am grateful to the members of staff and senior students in

the Department for the useful contributions they made during

the Departmental discussions.


(i ii)

I am indebted to Mr C. de Jager, retired scheol inspector,

and Mr J.S. Labuschagne, Chief Superintendent of Education,

for sharing with me their wealth of knowledge of the history

of the teaching of Xhosa in the schools under the

jurisdiction of the Cape Education Department. Mr de Jager

and. Mr Labuschagne did not only make their resources

available for me, but also gave me a lot of encouragement.

I am also indebted to Dr G.K.S. schur Lnq > Head of the

Sociolinguistics Section of the Human Sciences Research

Council, for the material assistance he gave me and the very

insightful discussions I had with him.

My sincere gratitude goes also to the teachers and education

students who helped me by completing questionnaires and who

talked frankly about their experiences with teaching and

learning Xhosa as a second language.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my brother, my

sisters and friends whose interest in my progress has always

been a source of inspiration to me.

I am very grateful to Anne Grant for all the time she put

aside to type this thesis.

My greatest debt is to my wife, Tobeka, and our children for

all the support and encouragement they gave me and for all


the sac~ifices they made to make the completion of thisthesis possible. .This is ou~ thesis.

Needless to say, all the sho~tcomings in this thesis ~emainenti~ely mine alone.

(iv)


(v)

INTRODUCTION

Motivatlon•

During the period between March 1974 and June 1981, I was

involved in the teaching of Xhosa to non-mather-tongue

speakers at Rhodes university, This experience b~ought me

face to face with problems for which my training as a

teacher of Xhosa had not prepared me as my training had been

in the first-language teaching and learning of Xhosa. It

also sensitized me to some of the problems and

contradictions that characterize the teaching of Xhosa to

White learners. The sensitization itself carne in the form

of a frustration which was two-dimensional.-

On the one hand I was frustrated by my inability to succeed

fully in motivating the students. On the other, it was

frustrating to witness the frustration of the learners with

learning language, something which was expressed sometimes

verbally and sometimes by dropping out of the course. The

big~est disappointment of the learners with the course was

that most of what they were taught and expected to know did..___.__

rrot relate to what they considered to be their needs. They

constantly complained that they were not get~ing out of

their learning what they enrolled in the course foS:]

Learners enrolled in the course because they wanted to

acquire communicative competence in the language ih order to


(vi)

be able to interact easily with the s~eakers or to be able

to get jobs where such competence is a prerequisite, e.g.

journalism, translation, personnel managemen~, etc. In

addition to not being able to reconcile the academic

components of the course (grammar, phonology, phonetics,

comparative linguistics, etc.) with their needs, the

learners had problems with reconciling the language variety

taught with the vacieties used outside the leacning

institution in ceal life communication situations.~ Those

who came knowing some non-standard vaciety got discoucaged

when they discoveced they had to unlearn almost everything

they had known, because the institution expected them to

acquire competence in the standard variety and did not

recognize any other variety. Those who carne not knowing

anything found it discoucaging to discover that the "pure

-)k{.'language"they were taught

communicate easily with the

did not do much to help them

mother-tongue speakers of the

) language because the speech communities into which they~~ moved after the language classes used a different variety

from that which they were taught. For example, it was not

uncommon to hear a student complaining: "I was at the rugby

match on Saturday and the Black guys next to me were often

~ ~saying '~i'.\" ~(Jet never used it once.~~ ball they shouted Ipa~

What was that word you gave us? They

And each time a player ran with the

pasa! I"•<,


(vii)

The other daunting problem for the learners was the lack.ofreal life communication opportunities. This meant that forpractising whatever they acquired from the classroom theyrelied on prefabricated communication situations in thelanguage laboratory or role-playing exercises. Because ofthe. artificiality of these situations, the learners'versatility in the language could not be satisfied. Throughthe wo~relations I had with the second language ..teachers of Xhosa at the local schools and with collea9ues'----~tot h~.s._u_n_ty.~_rs_itj,...~/_I __ c.a.m.e_t.o-.-k.n.o.w_t.b.a_t__ tJ:LEt.~e_~_ex_e_

un.Lve.cs.e.L, P..~....Q_i21-ems.

From my own point of view, I found it discouraging thatsuccessive attempts at devising workable strategies inmotivating the learners did not yield the required results.The learners' expectations did not match their willingnessto move into the community and interact with the mother-tongue speakers. The factors that militated against thedevelopment of this willingness were clearly tied up withthe socio-political context within which their learning

was tak ing pIace • ~I ~_I_S_O__ f_o_u_n_d__ i_t__ d_i_s_c_o_u_r_a...::g~i_n_g::__::t_h_a_t_..,

tertiary institutions seemed to be so chained to their..-.--- ..._~

language study tradition that they were not in a position to.--_._.-~,..._, .. ,.,.

be responsive~they serve~ .'--------.-learning, both

- - - ----------------to the communicative needs of the communities..-_., - '-'7

It became clear to me that institutions ofschools and universities, treated language as

an unchanging phenomenon which operated independently of


(viii)

society. On the other hand, as Funso Akere (1978:409) puts

it:

••• several sociolinguisticallyoriented studiesin language variation in recent yeais have shownthat the picture of a language as a uniform,invariable and unchanging phenomenon has given wayto one of considerable heterogeneity within thecontext of its use.

He goes on to explain why this i$ so when he quotes Bailey

and Robinson as saying:

•••. because the forces of standardization have notyet completely levelled the individualityresulting from genetic make-up and rearing,removed the human impulse to gather in manageablysmall groups, or erased the cultural differencesthat distinguish group from group or nation fromnation, language must be as various as the groupswho use it and the activities they engage in.

As a result of these experiences the following observations

were inevitable:

(a) that, because language is a social phenomenon that is

as dynamic as the society within which it operates,

institutions of learning should keep with the !up

effects of social dynamics on language, so that their

teaching should be able to meet the Ll nqu i st Lc ......)

communication needs of the learner~


(ix)

(b) that most of the problems that inhibit effective second

of Xhosa are rooted inlanguage teaching and learning

the non-linguistic

factors that form the

historical and soqio-political

background against which these

take place

(c) that these factors, the personnel situation at the

schools, as well as the syllabuses followed, represent

a contradiction between the needs of the learners and

the objectives of the second language teaching and

learning of Xhosa, on the one hand, and, on the other,

the means to satisfy these needs and achieve these

obj~ctives~

The Scope

Apart from attempting to uncover some of the problems that

the second-language teacher and learner of Xhosa have to

contend with, the aim of this thesis is to draw the

attention of the language practitioners and language

education policy-makers to the following: I

Because of the non-linguistic

political factors that inhibit

historical and

access to the

socio-

language and its speakers and, therefore,

target

the

development of integrative motivation, any programme of

second language teaching should include a programme of


(x )

reorientating attitudes and perspectives, whetherovertly or covertly.

The growing awareness on the part of White communities

of the need to acquire communicative competence in

~ ..

African languages requires that the potential of the

current language teaching and learning programmes to

satisfy the needs of the people be seriously re-examined

In the light of the inevitable effect of social

dynamics on language, as well as in the light of theneeds of;.-, the learners, the role of non-standard

varieties of language in human interaction can beignored only at the risk of not achieving theobjectives of second language education~

The South African government authorities need to

rededicate themselves to the cause of second languageteaching of African languages by taking andimplementing decisions aimed at eliminating all those

factors that inhibit effective teaching and learning,

on both a short-term and long-term basis.

Summary

This thesis is divided into five chapters.


(xi)

Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical issues involved in the

study of language as a social phenomenon. It traces the

development of the sub-discipline of sociolinguistics and,the contribution of sociologists and anthropologists to the

study of the relation between society and language. It is

the aim of this chapter to emphasize the need for an

empirical study of the effects of social dynamics on

language, in order to appreciate the implication of non-

linguistic social factors in language teaching and learning.

Chapter 2 outlines the importance of undertakingsociolinguistic surveys of languages before embarking o~ any

second language teéching and learning programmes. Thisfacilitates planning and ensures that the programmes do tie

up with, and have the potential -to meet, the needs of thelearners.

Chapter 3 gives a historical perspective of the teaching and

learning of Xhosa in White institutions in South Africa.

The aim of this chapter is to show how a country's language

education is inextricably bound up with its socio-politicalhistory. It is also intended to give a hist6rical

background against which the problem of social factors

pervading the second language teaching and learning 'of Xhosa

today should be understood.


(xii)

~Chapter 4 is divided into three main sections. The mainsection (paragraphs 4.2.1 to 4.2.4) gives a breakdown of

some social factors that have a significant effect on secondlanguage learning in general. The second section(paragraphs 4.3 to 4.3.3) deals with how these factors are

implicated in the second language teaching and learning of

Xhosa in South Africa. The third section (paragraphs 4.4.1

to 4.4.3) highlights the practical effects of these socialfactors. This is done by relating the problems confronting

those involved in the second language teaching and learning

of Xhosa to the social context within which these takeplace. Information about the nature of these problems wasobtained through the kind co-operation of the CapeEducational Department officers who made their records

available and through questionnaires completed by teachers

in service and by teacher trainees. Discussions with these

proved very useful in giving more insight into the problems.

Examination question papers (both external and internal) as

well as some teaching material were also scrutinized. I also

drew on personal experiences as a second language teacher ofXhosa.

Chapter 5 is the conclusion, in which the problems of social

factors are summarized. This chapter ends with some

suggestions as to what could be done to minimize the

negative effects of the social factors on the second

language teaching and learning of Xhosa.


(xiii)

General

Although the learning of African languages by non-mother

tongue speakers is officially referred to as third language

learning, "second language learning" has been preferred.

One of the reasons for this preference is that, under normal

circumstances, it is customary to have a first language, a

second language, and then a foreign language. The other is

that all the references used for the purposes of this thesis

have eieher been on second or foreign language teaching and

learning.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE - LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

1.1 Introduction

1.2 On Defining Sociolinguistics

1.3 The Emergence of Sociolinguistics as a Discipline

1.3.1

1.3.2

1.3.3

1.3.4

The Neglected Question

Social Scienc~s and Language

Sociolinguistics and Linguistics

Labovand Sociolinguistics

1.4 Antecedent Conditions of Language Change

1.4.1 The Centrality of Language in

Human Existence

Population Dispersal

Socio-cultural Change

Social Stratification

Context

Identity and Solidarity

Language Attitudes

Languag and Geography

1.4.2

1.4.3

1.4.4

1.4.5

1.4.6

1.4.7

1.4.8

1.5 Conclusion

(xiv)

PAGE

(i )

(i i )

(v)

(xiv)

1

1

3

4

9

16

18

26

26

28

29

35

39

41

47

47


(xv)

CHAPTER TWO - SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEYS AND LANGUAGE 50EDUCATION

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Sociolinguistic Surveys and Education5050

2.2.1 Language Varieties 552.2.1.1 The Speech Community 582.2.1.2 Speech Communities and Language Surveys 622.2.2 Language Attitudes ~2.2.2.1 Internally Projected Attitude 662.2.2.2 Externally Projected Attitude 792.2.3 Language Learners' Communication Needs 892.2.4 Importance for Language Education 942.2.4.1 The Policy-Makers @2.2.4.2 The Language Syllabus Designer 962.2.4.3 The Teacher Trainer 992.2.4.4 The Teacher and the Pupil 1022.2.4.5 The Parents 108

CHAPTER THREE - SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 113113

@128134

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Xhosa at South African Universities3.3 The Post-Primary Schools3.4 The Primary Schools


(xv i )

CHAPTER FOUR - SOCIAL FACTORS IN SECOND LANGUAGE 140LEARNING OF XHOSA

1.4 Introduction 1404.2 Social Factors in Second Language Learning 142

4.2.1 Communication Needs 1424.2.2 Access 144

Q}D4.2.3 Attitude4.2.4 Language Variability 158

(§)159

4.3 Significance for Xhosa as a Second Language4.3.1 The Socio-political Context4.3.2 The Status of Xhosa 1604.3.3 Xhosa-learners' Needs 163

4.4 The Practical Effects 1724.4.1 Planning 1734.4.2 Teachers and Teacher Training 1754.4.3 The Learners 180

CHAPTER FIVE - CONCLUSION 187~5.1 Introduction

Constrai nt;.;.-;7\\ 1875.2 Summary of the 1905.3 Possible Intervention S . i 197trateg.le~

:,5.3.1 Institutions of Lear~lng 197/5.3.2 Society Outside Leaching 207

//Institutions

BIBLIOGRAPHY 211


1

CHAPTER ONE

LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

But I would like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, soas he might be up to the tricks 0' these fellowsas talk fine and write with a flourish .••• I wanthim to know figures, and write like print, and seeinto things quick, and know what folks mean, andhow to wrap things up in words as aren tactionable.

George Eliot 1980 9

1.1 Introduction

I start this chapter by quoting two different utterances

made by a character in George Eliot's Millon the Floss.

When Mr Tulliver uttered the above he was, unconsciously

though it may have been, making a statement about how

language operates in society. This, of course, is putting

it in a nutshell. In fact, what Mr Tulliver was saying, was

that:

(i ) language can serve as a mirror of social strata:

(i i ) language is of great importance in human relations:

(iii) language has vaciations and that some variations enjoy

higher status than others:


2

(iv) ~eople can do many things with wOLds.

Also Leflected in the above utteLances is one of the

misconceptions about language which has, foctunately I

think, been successfully dispLoved, namely, that those who

ace linguistically disadvantaged cannot "see into things

quick"~ Because Mc TulliveL made the uttecances in the

context of justifying his wish to give his son, Tom, what he

called "a good eddication; an eddication as'll be bcead to

him" (1980:8), it can be said that what he also was saying

educational institution should equip thewas that an

language leacnec with linguistic skills foc living.

"Living" heLe is used not in the sense of being able to land

a job which will enable one to make a decent living, but

cathec in the sense of being able comfoctably to intecact

with the speakecs of the language one has leacnt

iCLespective of the vaciety of communication situations in

which one may find oneself.

Put diffecencly, what Mc Tulliver was saying was that he, as

a membec of society, had obsecved an inalienable Lelation

between language, society and education. ThecefoLe he was

making an utteLance which had sociolinguistic undeLtones.

In the following pacagcaph~ I shall attempt to exploce what

sociolinguistics is and what celation thece is between

sociolinguistics and the teaching and leacning of language.


3

The ultimate aim is to give a theoretical background which

will help in the understanding and analysis of the practical

problems that will be dealt with later.

1.2 On Defining Sociolinguistics

According to Downes (1984 15) sociolinguistics

is that branch of linguistics which studies justthose properties of language and languages whichrequire reference to social, including contextualfactors in their explanation.

Experience with learning has, however, taught learners in

all spheres of life that definitions like the one given by

Downes are seldom, if ever, enough to give clarity on any

particular subject. Comprehension usually emerges much more

easily from more illustrative perspectives than from mere

definitions. This is particularly the case in

sociolinguistics because it is relatively a new discipline.

There may be a number of ways in which one can gain the

perspective which may enable one to understand whatsociolinguistics is. One could start off by tracing the

various paradigms within which language has been studied and

taught over the years, or simply consider the functional

value of language in human life, one could choose to trace

the emergence of sociolinguistics as a component oflinguistics. I have chosen the latter approach, not because


4

it is the best, but because, fo~ the pu~poses of this

app~op~iate. (Howeve~, itthesis, it appea~s to be mo~ewould seem that whicheve~ app~oach one chose to make one's

point of depa~tu~e towa~ds a definition of sociolinguistics,

one would come to the same conclusion, namely, that the

field of linguistics could neve~ be complete without a

component that t~eats language as a social phenomenon.) It

appea~s app~op~iate fo~ the following ~easons:

(a) It has the potential to enable one to unde~stand why

sociolinguistics made such a late ent~y into the

linguistic scene.

(b) It confi~ms the ~elevance of language fo~ othe~

disciplines such as anth~opology and sociology.

(c) It contextualizes the pe~ception of the legitimacy of

the claims made ea~lie~ in the int~oduction as well as

the issues to be ~aised late~ which fo~m the main

p~emise of this thesis.

1.3 The Eme~gence of Sociolinguistics as a Discipline

1.3.1 The Neglected Question

When it is said that sociolinguistics is a new discipline -

and this is said quite f~equently in sociolinguistic


5

literature - it is easy to get the impression that earlier

linguistic studies or scholars of linguistics did not

consider language a social phenomenon. On the contrary,

there is enough evidence to show that linguists have always

been aware of this since the Greek period of linguistic

studies. However, as will be shown later, linguists never

considered this of any seriousworthy investigation.

why this veryAlthough with certaintyone cannot say

important aspect of language study was neglected in earlier

linguistic studies, one can speculate. In Downes'

definition of sociolinguistics given above, the keyword is

"variation". If variation in language is the trigger that

activates the interest of linguists in sociolinguistics,

then one may speculate that variation in the earlier period

of language study could not have been a significant issue.

Man had not yet brought in as many changes to his physical

and psychological environment as he did after the Industrial

Revolution. The mobility of speakers was not as it is

today. Communities were far more homogeneous than they are

today. Language homogeneity was therefore still a reality.

Early linguists were aware of dialectal differences in

language as well as of the fact that speakers could, and

did, use their language variably. However, the linguistic

issues that they addressed were thought to be more deserving

of their attention than the so~iolinguistic ones. Dialects

were seen as a potential threat to the preservation of

language purity. Those philosophers who took an interest in


6

language and who were therefore pioneers of linguistic

studies, were preoccupied with finding answers to such

"serious questions" as the origin of language and the

relation between sound and meaning. Those that continued

the language study tradition were preoccupied with the

notion of the preservation of language purity. This

knowledge of the "pure" language, according to Thrax,

facilitated:

the appreciation of literary compositions, whichis the noblest part of grammar.

This view of language comes out even more clearly in his

definition of grammar as quoted in Robins (1979 : 31):

Grammar is the practical knowledge of the generalusages of poets and prose writers.

Even the language description revolution ushered in by the

publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's lectures by his

former students did not do enough to activate the interest

of linguists in the factors that come into play when

speakers of a language use their language. Their concern

was solely with the structure of the langue and not with

parole. The difference between them and their post-de

Saussurean counterparts was simply that of method rather

than that of subject, which in both cases was the

description of the structure of language as a system. The


7

distinction between language and speech was mersly

acknowledged, but speech was not considered to have any

place in linguistics. In the introduction to his

Sociolinguistic Patterns (1972 xv), Labovattempts to

account for linguists' neglect of variation in language by

citing some of the views expressed by structuralists in

ordec to justify this neglect:

The second ideological barrier explicitly assertedthat sound change could not in principle bedirectly observed. Bloomfield defended theregularity of sound change against the irregularevidence of the present by declaring (1933 : 364)that any fluctuations we might observe would onlybe cases of dialect borrowing. Next Hockettobserved that while sound change was too slow tobe observed, structural change was too fast (1958: 457). The empirical study of linguistic changewas thus removed from the programme of twentiethcentury linguistics. A third restriction wasperhaps the most important: free variation couldnot in principle be constrained. The basicpostulate of linguistics (Bloomfield 1933: 76)declared that some utterances were the same.Conversely, these were in free variation, andwhether or not the other occurred at a particulartime was taken to be linguistically insignificant

The internal structure of variation wastherefore removed from linguistic studies and,with it, the study of change in progress.

It was also held that feelings about language wereinaccessible and outside of the linguist's scope(Bloch and Trager, 1942). The social evaluationof linguistic variants was therefore excluded fromconsideration. This is merely one aspect of themore general claim that the linguist should notuse not-linguistic data to explain linguisticchange.

What is said by Labov here implies that the post-de

Saussurean linguists did not only ignore social evaluation


8

of language change, but also did so consciously. Other

sociolinguists such as Fishman and Kroeber have echoed

almost the same sentiments ex~ressed by Labov in attempting

to explain the neglect of sociolinguistics in earlier

linguistic studies.

However, in all fairness to the earlier language scholars,

whatever can be said against their neglect of social

considerations in the field, it should also be borne in mind

that these did not have much relevance to their language

study objectives. Moreover, sociolinguistic surveys and

theories can only flourish against the background of what

one can call a solid edifice of descriptive linguistic

theory. Such theories themselves evolve over a period of

time. Sociolinguists, who today seem to relish criticizing

the structuralist, the comparativist and the

transformationalist, owe much more than they are prepared to

admit to these early language scholars who evolved the

theoretical foundations on which sociolinguists have built.

Even more is owed by sociolinguists to those scholars of

other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, who,

for practical reasons related to their disciplines, were the

first to recognize the usefulness of language in the study

of social sciences.


9

1.3.2 Social Sciences and Language

A study of the historical development of linguistic studies

shows that descriptive linguistics has its roots in

philosophy because it was the questions raised by

philosophers that launched an avalanche of theories about

language. On the other hand, the component of language that

deals with language as a social phenomenon has evolved from

the interest which anthropologists and sociologists had in

language.

Since the main reason for the inclusion of this section here

is to show that it took scholars from other fields to'

interest linguists in the study of language in society, I

shall do no more than just list some of the European and

American anthropologists and sociologists whose

contributions in the field of linguistic anthropology and

sociology of language had a significant impact of the

development of sociolinguistics as a component of general

linguistics. Their respective biases will not be dealt

with, although their motivation generally should emerge from

the remarks made. It should also be mentioned here that

this is not to imply that scholars from other disciplines

did not perceive language as relevant to their respective

disciplines. On the contrary, politicians such as Marx and

Lenin had very clearly defined views about the significance

',.~..t ;,.",~:..


10

of language in the shaping of national policies atgovernmental level.

Dell Hymes,

anthropology,one of

tracesthe great figures in linguistic

the Britishthe involvement ofanthropologists in language from as far back as the last

quarter of the nineteenth century with the appearance of Sir

Edward Taylor's Primitive Culture and Anthropology in 1871

and 1881 respectively, in which he included some chapters on

language (1964 4). But Dell Hymes himself is prepared to

concede that Bronislaw Malinowski, the celebrated

anthropologist, is the father of linguistic anthropology in

the British Isles. Other notable scholars in the British

Isles were Gardiner, Firth, Hocart and Haddon.

In France the study of the relationship between language and

society was pioneered by anthropologists and sociologists as

well as by linguists. The names of the linguists, de

Saussure and Meiliet, the sociologist, Durkheim and theanthropologist, Maus, are notable. A number of Frenchscholars, amongst whom was Claude Levi-Strauss, continuedthis tradition.

In America, anthropological work among the Indian tribes

motivated scholars' interest in linguistic anthropology.

Among these many scholars were Franz Boas, his students,

Edward Sapir and A.L. Kroeber and Leonard Bloomfield, who


11

also cegacded himself as Boas' student. Although these

scholacs had theic cespective biases, some of which shifted

fcom one emphasis to the othec, as their involvement

intensified and as a cesuIt of the influence of fucthec

cesearch findings and ideas fcom other scholacs, the pcemise

of their wock was undoubtedly uniform. First, they saw

language as a tool that could lead to conclusive findings.

Then, because theic main concecn was the cultuce of the so-

called pcimitive communities or tribes, they carne to

cecognize language as a cultuce semiotic. Hence the eacliec

term: ethno-linguistics. It was through obsecving language

that they could make statements about customs, beliefs,

social stcata, behaviouc pattecns, etc. of the "pcimitive"

communities.

Howevec, what is moce celevant for the pucposes of this

section of the wock, is that what they all had to say about

linguistics bet cays their thorough awareness of the

linguistic trends of theic time. It is pechaps to these

allusions to linguistics that sociolinguistics owes its

existence. Boas, foc instance, stated that:

... it was indispensable for each language to bedesccibed in tecms of its own configuration,instead of on a. preconceived abstcact scheme,which, in pcactice, often carne to little moce thana modification of Latin gcammac.

1964 17


12

In the same vein Malinowski observed that linguists:

may have in future to abandon theircomfortable, two-dimensional world of parchmentand paper, and either go into the field, or elserely on material documented not only by words, butalso by those aspects of human life, activity, andsocial organisation by which the use of words isdetermined.

1964 63

What they were saying, in essence, was that linguistics

would benefit more if linguists were to cease to treat

language merely as a system operating independently of the

social man, something which, at the time, distinguished the

ethno-linguists from the linguists.

Boas, however, expressed the hope that the time would come

for active recognition by linguists of the need for the

consideration of social factors in language studies when he

said:

I think that the time is not far distant .•. whenlinguistics and biology will continue the work weare doing now because no one else cares for it.

Hymes 1964 : 12

Boas may not have been correct in saying that "no one else

cares" because Alexei Losev (1977 109) quotes Marx and

Engels in his "The Specific Features of the Language Sign"

as saying:


13

.•. neither thoughts nor language inform a realm of their ownmanifestations of actual life

themselvesthey are

Though their "care" did not extend beyond their political

motives, it is significant that the statement touched on the

core of the neglected notion of relations that hold between

objective reality and subjective thinking on the one hand

and language on the other.

Although it took longer than Boas had hoped, the interest of

anthropologists in language did succeed in arousing the

interest of scholars from other disciplines. Perhaps for

the reasons cited above, it took the linguists longer than

it did the sociologists. The latter group themselves,

despite the early insights of Durkheim, were initially wary

of relating language to the study of social behaviour

because they considered language:

•.• as an omnipresent and invariantsociety, thereby failing to seeinfluence on social action

feature ofits causal

Giglioli 1983 11

Fishman (1972 : 8) attributes this indifference also to the

nature of the societies within which the sociologists worked

when he says this:


14

is undoubtedly eelated to theuebanised natuee of the societiesthe founding fathees of Ameeicansociology.

monoglot andbest known toand Eueopean

In the case of Ameeican sociologists, Fishman goes on to say

that it could also be accounted foe by the fact that

Ameeican sociology was initially non-compaeative and that

the sociologists themselves weee oveewhelmingly monolingual

with the eesult that:

.•• most maceotopics in sociology of language(i.e. multilingualism and ethno-nationalsolidaeity, long-teem teends in languagemaintenance and language shift, languagestandaedization and language planning etc.) steikemany Ameeican sociologists as dealing with mattecsboth foeeign and macginal to society as they knowit.

Howevee, because of the gradual change in the nature of

their woek and also that of the societies within which they

worked, sociologists began to eealize that without taking

into account the impoetance of language in the study of

social behavioue, much of theie work would be severely

hampeced. This gradual awaceness of the impoetance of

language in social behavioue opened up new avenues for the

sociologists with the result that they now began to gain

moce insight into the hitherto taken-foc-granted process of

gcoup formation and disintegration, group interaction etc.

What is more, this led to their devising moee analytical


15

inquiries into these theoretical problems and even more

refined research methodologies were applied.

A more detailed account of the development of the field

which the sociologists referred to as the sociology of

language is quite peripheral to this work and therefore

shall not be taken any further. Let is suffice to say that

the strides that it made manifested themselves in the many

conferences that were held and in which sociolinguistic

topics were addressed, resulting in the vast literature

available today on the subject. These culminated, among

other things, in a growing number of specialists and the

appearance of journals on the sociology of language. In any

case such an account would never be easy to give since

sociolinguistic studies attracted and brought together

scholars from anthropology, sociology and linguistics.

This, indeed, was contrary to the hope expressed by Boas in

1904 about sociolinguistics developing into an autonomous

field in the hands of linguists only. The ~_!l_t_~E_2_~~~_ip~inary

nature of sociolinguistics rendered this impossible. The

more insight sociologists and anthropologists gained in

language, the more involved in it they became.

It may therefore be necessary at this point to conclude by

attempting to draw a distinctio~ between sociolinguistics as

an activity of anthropologists and sociologists on the one

hand, and of linguists on the other, with a view to dealing


16

with the development of sociolinguistics in the context of

gene~al linguistics.

In a nutshell, anthropologists in thei~ study of language

we~e motivated by a desi~e to gain mo~e insight into the

culture of its speake~s while sociologists desi~ed to gain

insight into the social behaviou~ of its speake~s. If the

data collected we~e conside~ed to be enough fo~ these

purposes, fu~the~ analysis of these va~iations and the

mechanisms of thei~ development we~e conside~ed to be

outside the scope of anthropology and sociology. A purely

linguistic app~oach would be the one that would not only

identify the linguistic va~iations and theo~ize on thei~

social significance, but also go fu~the~ and conside~ the

processes by which these variations appear, as well as

answer questions about their phonological structure and

finally, formulate empirical theories about them. In other

words, anthropologists and sociologists take language into

consideration in their study of society while sociolinguists

take society into consideration in their study of language.

On the other hand earlier linguists studied language in

isolation, outside of society, that is.

1.3.3 Sociolinguistics and Linguistics

It is generally accepted in sociolinguistic circles that a

clear break between an anthropological and sociological on


17

the one hand, and a strictly linguistic approach to

sociolinguistics came with the appearance of the works of

William Labov, especially his studies of Martha's Vineyard

and English in New York. These studies provided the impetus

for a new approach of social dialectology in America which

was destined to have a tremendous impact on sociolinguistic

studies the world over. Although Labov is internationally

acclaimed as the shaper of the strictly linguistic approach

to the study of the social significance of language, he, by

his own admission, owed this insight to his teacher at

Columbia University, Uriel Weinreich. In a moving tribute

to Weinreich, he sum up his indebtedness to him by sayin~:

I found that his thinking had anticipated my ownby many years

1972 xv

Commenting on "Empirical Foundations for a Theory of

Language Change", a joint paper by Labov, Marvin Herzog and

Uriel Weinreich, W.P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (1971 ix)

echo the same sentiment when they remark:

It is no diminution of the shares of ProfessorsHerzog and Labov in this study to state that muchof the original impetus for their research camefrom Uriel Weinreich.

These sentiments can perhaps be verified without having to

go into Uriel Weinreich's work per se, but by merely


18

mentioning that he supervised Labov's studies on both

Martha's Vineyard and New York City English and that it was

at his insistence that "Empirical Foundations for a Theory

of Language Change" was written. (He died two days aftercompleting the final revision of this paper.) The taskwhich Weinreich set linguists is captured in the following

which summarizes the crux of this paper:

The key to rational conception of language change- indeed of language itself - is the possibilityof describing orderly differentiation in alanguage serving a community.

in Lehmann and Malkiel 1971 101

1.3.4 Labovand Sociolinguistics

I shall now very briefly comment on Labov's approach tolinguistic variation. I do this for two reasons. First,

Labov, as is already clear from the above, set the trends

for the later sociolinguistic surveys. Second, later inthis thesis I intend to consider the applicability of his

approach to the teaching of Xhosa as a second language with

a view to showing why I think .his approach cannot, without a

certain degree of modification, be used as a model.

The starting point in Labov's studies is that a language is

not to be described as if it is a homogeneous object.

Therefore any theory of language description which treats

language as such aR object is bound to be unnecessarily


19

idealistic and counte~factual because language is " an

object possessing o~de~ly hete~ogeneity." (Ibid.) It is fo~

this ~eason that he felt that Chomsky's view of g~amma~ has

tu~ned out to be mo~e Utopian than it appea~ed o~iginally.

Neve~theless, one finds it difficult to ag~ee with him when

he states that:

••• the generative model fo~ the desc~iption oflanguage as a homogeneous object is itselfun~ealistic and ~epresents a backwa~d step f~omst~uctu~al theories capable of accommodating thefacts of orderly hete~ogeneity.

in Lehmann and Malkiel 1971 100

The me~its and deme~its of the Chomskian pa~adigm' a~e

outside the scope of this wo~k, but the above seems to be

too ha~sh a judgement on Chomsky's theo~y of g~amma~.

In his attempts to devise an empirical theo~y of language,

Labov started off by identifying the social g~oups that

rep~esented the diffe~ent speech communities among the

language speake~s in New Yo~k. Unlike his p~edecesso~s who

relied on a handful of info~mants, Labov used a g~eat numbe~

of info~mants. His selection of these was based on

scientifically designed ~andom sampling which ensu~ed that

everybody had a chance to be selected fo~ inte~view even

though not eve~ybody could be inte~viewed (Trudgill 1980:

39). Labov's main objective was to show that variations in

speech could not be explained away by me~ely ~efe~~ing to


20

them dS free variations, as had hitherto been done by

earlier linguists. Variations, he maintained, had to be

viewed in the background of speech communities as a whole.

Were this to be done it would be discovered that variation:

was not random but determined by extra-linguistic factors in a quite predictable way.

Trudgill 1980 40

Having done the sampling of the speakers, Labov would then

select those lexical items which displayed frequent and more

observable diversification. Because his main concern was

diversification at sound level rather than at lexical level,

his choice would be of those lexical items in which

diversification manifested itself in articulation

differentiation, in terms of the presence or absence of a

particular mode of articulation in a given social speech

group. In this way he would be able not only to quantify

the variations, but also to predict in which social group or

social speech context a particular mode of articulation

could or could not be expected to be found. This would, in

turn, form the basis for accounting for the occurrence or

non-occurrence of the mode of articulation. The combination

of context and social affiliation itself allowed for

investigation of the reasons why a member of a particular

speech community would switcn from one manner of use to the

other. Examples of this would be his studies of the social


21

stratification of the New York r and the variations in the

articulation of some diphthongs.

With more and more involvement in sociolinguistic research

and debates, and with the appearance of more and more

convergent sociolinguistic research findings, Labov

revisited his theory of language change, confirmed it or

modified it or interlocked it with others. These have

resulted in the appearance, inter alia, of "Building on

Empirical Foundations" in Lehmann and Malkiel 1982. This

work is therefore both an extension and an evaluation of the

original theory propounded in WLH's (Weinreich, LaboVand

Herzog) earlier paper and a summary of current views on the

sociolinguistic study of language.

According to Labov, it would seem, there are tw~ fundamental

principles involved in the exercise of laying foundations

for language change theory. Fllê_t_, the notion of normal

heterogeneity must replace the notion of language

homogeneity. Any normal speech community is a heterogeneous

one and therefore a wide range of variants, styles and

dialects in language use are to be expected. When this is

accepted, it then becomes easy to see a relation or

correlation between these variations and the differences

among the speakers and speech situations. The second

principle is the question of the target of linguistic

description. The object of linguistic description should be


22

the grammar of the system of communication used in social

interaction and should therefore use techniques that are

adequate to deal with the heterogeneous character of the

system. He says:

There is a growing realisation that the basis ofintersubjective knowledge in linguistics must befound in speech -language as it is used ineveryday life by members of the social order, thatvehicle of communication in which they argue withtheir wives, joke with their friends and deceivetheir enemies.

Labov 1972 xiii

Labav, in practice, is definitely in agreement with Downes'

definition of sociolinguistics although he states that he

accepts the term with some degree of reluctance and feels

that it is a bit of a misnomer since language is a social

phenomenon anyway. There are two points which, according to

him, are of major importance in devising a theory of

language change, i.e. language diversity. It is important

first of all to establish what language change essentially

is. Language can be said to have changed only when members

of a speech community:

••• agreearbitraryeither by

to accept a new token as part of thesystem for transferring information,using the new token or understanding it

1972 46


23

Thus, when an

coinages, ecrors

individual's speech displays individual

or residues from child speech, this will

not amount to language change as such;, until such time as

the elements have been widely propagated, accepted and

understood. A theocy of language change would have as one

how it is that the hetecogeneous

never hinders intelligibility.

of its tasks explaining

chacacter of a language

This, in order for it to be a relatively easy exercise,

would have to include the investigation of the antecedent

conditions that are, or have been, the determining factors

in the initiating rate of propagation, the direction - as

well as the termination - of the variations. This is the

point of failuce in earlier studies in language change - the

constant unwillingness to move outside the system of

communication itself in search of the forces that ace

cesponsible for its change.

based on the argument

dysfunctional.

This negative attitude was

that language change was

The second impoctant point to be taken into account befoce a

theocy of linguistic diversity is developed is the bceakdown

of the problems that are attendant upon it. Labov lists a

numbec of these. I shall mention here only those that I

cons idee to be very crucial foe second-language learning and

teaching. These are:


24

(a) The Constcaints Pcoblem

This factoc involves seeking answecs to the question of the

factocs, if any, that detecmine possible oe impossible

changes and the dicection of change. An investigation of

these factoes would make it possible to explain which

changes can oe cannot occuc in language. Identifying the

dicection would facilitate gcammatical descciption as, foe

instance, in the case of gcammatical oe phonological cule

genecalization wheceby speakecs may be obsecved to tend to

extend one cule to other areas with the purpose of

simplifying.

(b) The Embedding Problem

The solution of this pcoblem would lead to the

identification of the celations that hold between language

change and environment. Thus one could identify such

concepts as the initiatocs of change, their status in the

community, the role of the various social gcoups as well as

where new speakers such as immigcants fit in in the study of

linguistic diversity.

(c) The Evaluation Problem

This pcoblem deals with the assessment of the speakers'

attitude towards a given change itself. Some of the


25

attitudes may be cove~t and othe~s may be so ove~t that

speake~s actually talk about them. The cove~t ones may not

always be easily accessible to the ~esea~che~, but may be

uncove~ed th~ough ve~y ca~efully wo~ked out ~esea~ch

methods. Put diffe~ently, this p~oblem has to do with

asce~taining the status of the va~iation in the opinion of

the speake~s.

The significance of these p~oblems fo~ the pu~poses of this

thesis is that, even though th~y were raised in the context

of studying sound change, they apply gene~ally to any level

of language va~iations. Of the above, (b)and (c) a~e

especially c~ucial to language teaching and lea~ning; not

only fo~ the teache~ and learne~, but also fo~ the language

syllabus designe~.

F~om the identification of the p~oblems the next phase

should be the identification of the va~ious antecedent

conditions that allow for the emergence of the variations.

The identification of these antecedent conditions which a~e

ext~a-linguistic does not, howeve~, suggest that in thei~

absence language would ha~dly eve~ be dive~sified. Oh the

cont~ary, ~esearch findings have shown that, as a ~esult of

ce~tain facto~s, some of which ~elate to the speake~s

themselves as humans, and some of which ~elate to the sound

elements of the language, the~e is no human language which

can be totally immune to being diversified. In a chapte~


26

entitled "Doing what comes natu~ally", Aitchison (1981)

deals with these facto~s extensively. These a~e pe~iphe~al

to the pu~poses of this wo~k, though a language teache~ o~

lea~ne~ may benefit f~om being awa~e of them.

1.4 Antecedent Conditions of Language Change

1.4.1 The Cent~ality of Language in Human Existence

Although ancient philosophe~s ri~ve~ succeeded in answe~ing

questions about the o~igin of language, the~e is no doubt

that language is as old as mankind. Man is bo~n into a

language milieu and du~ing eve~y moment of his li~e he goes

th~ough linguistic expe~ience. Fo~ this ~eason, therefo~e,

man's ve~y existence is welded into language. Language is

at the cent~e of human existence.

Hence it ~eflects eve~y phase and aspect of thei~life, ~ep~esents all the known ~ealities of life;in fact, it dete~mines in conside~able pa~t whatwe a~e awa~e of, what we believe, how we patte~nou~ thought and how we act.

He~tzle~ 1965 20

Downes (1984 37) desc~ibes language as an:

institutionalized entity deeplywith the life of a society, andinvolved in both its political anddevelopment and its st~uctu~e.

identifiedint~icatelyhisto~ical


27

Because of this celation that exists between language and

society, language should be seen as a multi-dimensional

dynamic peocess since multi-dimensional dynamism is a

featuee of society. It is also foe this eeason that the

factoes eesponsible foe language dynamics can be explained

in teems of the dynamics of society. Howevee, in doing

this, it has to be boene in mind that society itself

eepeesents the sum total of its individual membees who all

exist In both a physical and a spatio-tempoeal envieonment

which exeet a vaeiety of peeceived and unperceived peessuees

on them. The eesuit of these pressures is that human life

becomes a succession of tentative adjustments ~nd

adaptations to the woeld in which man exists. Man may not

necessaeily be

adaptations that

eeguiacity and

awaee all the time of the adjustments and

he is making. But theee is no doubt,

systematicity in these efforts. In all this

the instcument used is language and theeefoee the eeguiacity

and systematicity of these adjustments and adaptations

manifest themselves in the eeguiacity and systematicity of

vaeiations in language. If one weee to look at the

multiplicity of uses in which man has to put language in

this whole exeecise, one would undecstand how inevitable it

is that language should be subjected to all kinds of

diveesity.


28

1.4.2 Population Dispersal

Although it is clear from what has been said about the

inevitability of language variation, it is possible to

imagine a period in the history of each individual language

when language variation could not have been at a level at

which it could warrant any attention from or pose any

problem for language analysts or teachers. This must of

course, be a period which borders on the hypothetical since

language analysis and teaching are themselves responses to a

changed or changing social environment. It must also be a

period during which man's movement from one locality to

another, both as an individual and as a member of a larger

group, must have been very slow in comparison to what it is

today. All evidence in man's history points to the fact

that man has always been on the move, either in search of a

better life or as a result of wars. The imfecane is an

example which had tremendous implications for Xhosa. The

movement of the Fingo into the land of the Xhosa was of

great significance for variation in Xhosa.

However, mechanization of industry resulted in a change in

people's social, economic and political lives. One of these

results was an increase in population dispersal. In the

case of the Black man in South Africa the major effect of

this changed socio-economic situation was that his· life

depended on moving from one physical environment to another


29

in search of work or education. In all cases this meant

movement to the industrial or urban labour centres or

education institutions. The points to which he moves fromhis place of origin

where people withturn out to be points of convergence

different speech habits meet. He

therefore gets exposed to a variety of speech norms and is

himself a carrier, carrying his old speech habits into the

new environment and then taking the newly acquired ones back

home. A converse situation which also has some bearing on

increased population dispersal is one in which permanent

residents of the industrial areas - the so-called city-

dwellers - move out to the rural areas, either to go and

settle or in an effort to re-establish contact with their

roots or simply in search of a quieter life.

In addition to the appearance of variations, the other

effect is that this new situation in which man is thrown

develops in him new awareness about his language which shape

up certain attitudes towards language. These are dealt with

elsewhere in this section.

1.4.3 Socio-cultural Change

Another factor, closely related to population dispersal,

which has a bearing on langu~ge diversification is socio-

cultural change. Language is tied up with the culture of

its speakers. Thus once some pressures are imposed on a


30

people's culture necessitating some adjustments and

adaptations, language becomes as variable as the culture of

its speakers because, in order for it to be capable of

fulfilling its social obligations, it has to be pliable.

The forces that exert pressure on a culture of a people are

themselves too numerous to enumerate. However, they could

be summed up by mentioning the fact that people have to

respond to new elements, new communal experiences, newawarenesses, interests and needs - especially insofar as

these relate to technological and social achievement.

(Hertzler 1965 : 142)

In African languages the effects of socio-cultural change on

language are more manifest at the level of the lexicon and

code-switching than at the syntactic, morphophonological and

tonological levels. At these latter levels though there are

some observable variations (especially at the tonological

level), these, in most cases, do not hinder access to

meaning that much: they do not pose many problems for

communication and therefore are not a great obstacle in

second-language teaching and learning, as we shall see later

on. There is an interesting example of this in S.E.K.

Mqhayi's UMqhayi waseNtabozuko where he tells a story of a

little boy who picked up a tone variation in the speech of a

Black policeman (he turned out to be a Fingo) who had

visited the village to investigate a crime. The little boy,

after he had left, would now and again imitate a sentence


31

from his utterances which contained a mispronounced word,

until this attracted the attention of the old people who

would often call the little boy and ask him to repeat what

was said by the policeman. They would then laughingly

remark: "Men, you see how these Fingoes are spoiling our,

language." The sentence was "Madoda, funan' indoda, musan'

ukonhwaba" in which the alveolar nasal of the last word was

articulated with breathy voice. This never hindered access

to the meaning of the sentence or the word, though. Some of

these effects are manifest in the idiom of the language and

this poses problems in the standardization of language.

Again in African societies the concept of socio-cultural

change has to be interpreted in two ways. Fix_s_t.J.y,it has

to be seen as a reference to those changes within one

particular culture which are necessitated by the need to

adjust to a changed socio-economic environment which has

changed not

but rather

Secondly, it

in the face of coexistence with other cultures,

as a result of the natural dynamics of society .•

has to be seen as a reference also to those

changes within a culture that have resulted from coexistence

with other cultures, especially those that are stronger. A

culture would be said to be stronger than another if it is

of people who possess more political, military, economic and

technological power. People possessing such power are in a

better position to dictate terms and set the standards, and

in this they are assisted by the benefits that are


32

associated with pcoficiency in theic language. Those who do

not have this powec have no choice, but helplessly to adjust

and adapt to the covect and ovect dictates of those who haveit. The language of the stcongec gcoup is eithec

pidginized, cceolized oe divecges into othec new dialects

such as the non-standacd Negco English (NNE) oe BlackEnglish Yecnaculac (BEY). Anothec example neacec home,accocding to Jocdan (1974 4(2)) is what happened to Dutch

in the Cape as a cesult of the influence of the slaves fcomMalaysia. The pcesence of the slaves cesulted in the

pidginization of Dutch and, accocding to Jocdan, Afcikaans

'beacs a vecy close cesemblance to this pidgin Dutch.

On the othec hand, the language of the weakec gcoup has to

develop some mechanisms of coping with this situation.

These ace some of these mechanisms:

(i) Boccowing

Use is made of loan-wocds which ace boccowed fcom the othec

language oe languages with whose speakecs they coexist toexpcess new concepts. These ace fitted into thephonological system of the boccowing language.

e.g. Englishgcavel

Xhosaigcabile

Afcikaanstafel itafile


33

Ideally, borrowing should not result in languagediversification, but in reality it does because borrowing of

words is not confined to the expression of new concepts for

which there are no terms. Use is made of loan-words even in

the case of concepts for which there are terms.

e.g. Afrikaans Xhosa I Xhosa 2spyker isikhonkwane isipekireskulpad ufudo isikolpatiEnglish Xhosa I Xhosa 2gate isango igeyithigarden isitiya igadi

(ii) Coining of new terms

The other way of dealing with the problem of labels for new

concepts is the use of old terms for new concepts. There

are various ways in which this is done. It may be throughbroage.Ili!lg_the old meaning to include the new concept as in:.--_.~......-

isibonda "headman (old meaning), mayor (new meaning)"

It could be through E~rrowing the meaning by restricting it

to the new concept only, because the old one has becomeobsolete in:

ukugonya "protect against evil spirits or bad luck by

washing in medicated water or making incisions (old meaning)

to immunise as at clinics and hospitals (new meaning)"


34

Some old teems may be compounded to be ing ou t l}~~. __I1}_~_a.nLngs.as in:

uSibakhulu "Seccetacy-Genecal (fcom usiba "pen" and-khulu "big")"

'The above should, howevee, not be taken to suggest that the

language of a cultucally stcongec gcoup is immune to

influences by the language of a cultucally. weakec gcoup of

speakecs.11 On the con t rary , coexi sti ng 1anguages, as

Jocdan's example has shown, ace bound to influence one

anothec, iccespective of the stcength of the cultuce of

theic cespective speakecs. The diffecence is only in the

extent of the influences. Thece may be othec ceasons foe

this, but the moce obvious one is the fact that speakecs of

a language, iccespective of the stcength of theic cultuces,

inevitably have to cespond to cectain needs that ace imposed

by theic intecaction with the speakecs of the cultucally

weakec gcoups. In any case, speakecs of diffecent languages

usually show a tendency to make mutually accommodating

effocts in communication, in the same way as adults will use

childcen's language when speaking to childeen. This

accounts foe the pcactice wheceby a speakec will use his

language "incoccectly" to a leacning non-mothec-tongue

speakec to achieve intelligib~lity. And, who knows, these

can be so fcequently used that they spcead and add to the

cepectoice of non-standacd social dialects, because these


35

can very easily be ignored since they may not necessarily

hinder or reduce access to meaning.

1.4.4 Social Stratification

The usual notion used by most sociolinguists to refer to

groups that represent social strata is "social class". I

have deliberately avoided the use of this phrase mainly

because the hierarchic ordering of the society whose members

are speakers of the language under discussion in this

thesis, namely Xhosa, cannot be described in terms of social

class. "Social sectors" will here be used to denote any

group of people bound together by common interests,

awarenesses, beliefs,

therefore represent a

social hierarchy.

norms and behaviour patterns and who

clearly discernible level in the

M.A.K. Halliday (1978: 113), in dealing with the relation

between language and social structure, mentioned three ways

in which social structure is implicated in a sociolinguistic

theory:

(i) It defines and gives significance to the various types

of social context in which meanings are exchanged.

( 2 ) it determines and regulates the meanings and

meaning styles that are associated with given social


36

contexts, including those contexts that are critical in

the processes of cultural transmission.

(3) ••• the social structure enters in through the effects

of social hierarchy, in the form of caste or class.

This is obviously the background to social dialects,which are both a direct manifestation of social

hierarchy and also a symbolic expression of it ••.

Implicit in all these three points is the fact that thestratification

significance.of society is of great linguistic

The societal strata are complementary since

they are not mutually exclusive, and are therefore capable

of influencing one another. However, in many ways they are

discernible as they are clearly different even though the

differences themselves vary from society to society. They

manifest themselves in a variety of aspects of life. For

instance, in a society where stratification takes the formof a social class system, there may be differences inincome, wealth, places of residence, patterns of home life,etc. In a society of this nature members of a particular

tend to interact with one another and less withclass will

members of another class. In the process they will develop

common speech behaviour patterns which are different from

those of the members of the other class, but which may not

always be closer to the standard dialect.


37

In Xhosa society - indeed in any Afcican society in South

Afcica - which is not stcatified in the focm of class, the

implications of social stcatification foe language ace moce

complex. Social intecaction defies all social

differentiation as a result of a numbec of ceasons, the most

impoctant of which are: a relatively stconger attachment to

tcaditional customs, lack of choice of cesidential areas,

common political, economic and educational deprivation and a

gcowing awareness of the need for national solidacity in the

face of the ceality of socio-political domination. Thus in

Xhosa society, while there is social differentiation, foe

instance, according to sex, age, voluntary associations,

ucban and cucal abode, and, to a lessee extent, ethnicity,

thece is because of the above factors, moce mutual

linguistic influence among the social groups. This type of

situation also leads to membees of the society changing

social group membership as the circumstances demand.

Women develop theic own dialect, as do men, boys and girls.

Howevee, these may belong to othec voluntacy associations or

occupational gcoups which may cut accoss sex, age and ethnic

boundacies, such as wockec gcoups, religious groups, sports

clubs, youth clubs, etc., which, in tucn, have theic own

language values. These ace cefecced to as cegistecs. As

one individual changes membeeship fcom gcoup to group, he

carcies with him his speech habits and at the same time

picks up new ones. The diagcam below shows how Downes


38

eepeesents this schematically. But Downes' diageam does not

eepeesent even half the situations in which a speakeeusually finds himself. The implications of all thisinteegcoup mingling foe language vaeiation ace multi-dimensional. Typically the social steatification yieldslinguistic vaeiation. Howevee as HeetzIer (1965 367)obseeves:

The type and amount of linguistic steatificationdepends, foe its shaepness and persistence, uponthe rigidity of social stra~~fication system.

o

Because of the eeduced rigidity of the social stratification

system of African societies it becomes less easy, but not

impossible, to identify a paeticular noem of speech with anyparticular geoup exclusively. The feequency of use of apaeticulae norm by the various social geoups makes it more

difficult for non-mothee-tongue speakees to distinguish

between a suitable and an unsuitable context foe the


39

adoption of a particular mode of speech. The frequency ofdiglossia tends to be very high.

Even with the emergence recently of semi-exclusiveprestigious townships for Blacks in South Africa, it seems

it will take some time before this situation changes. Inany case, as Hertzler (1965) observes:

Even a cursory examination of the speech habits ofindividuals shows that the special languages arenot mutually exclusive as far aa any particularindividual is concerned.

Given all the above, and given the individual speaker's

ability to switch from one code to another, the question to

ask is: What are the factors that determine the use of any

of these variations? Answers to this question and which I

attempt to give below reveal further antecedent conditionsthat allow for language variation.

1.4.5 Context

The various language registers mentioned in paragraph 2.4.4,

as we have seen, are accessible to all members of society.

Therefore in their totality they form the community's verbalrepertoire. A number of social factors can be involved in

determining the choice of variety from this vast verbal

repertoire. One of these is context. Halliday (1978 : 125)


40

refers to the register chosen as the text and describes text

as:

••• the product of infinitely many simultaneousand successive choices in meaning, and is realisedas lexicogrammatical structure or word.

He goes on:

The environment of the text is the context ofsituation, which is an instance of social context,or situation type.

Ibid.

The context is thus a semiotic construct which is structured

in terms of field, tenor and mode. Field is the text-generating activity. In other words, what Halliday calls

"field" is what, in simple terms, can ~e called the subject

matter. Tenor is the role relationships of theparticipants. This, in simple terms, is what can bereferred to as the social distance between theinterlocutors. Mode is the rhetorical mode that the

participants adopt in verbal interaction. This is a

reference to the style used which is appropriate both for

the field and tenor. In addition to this it should be

remembered that environment takes time and space into

account. Thus the environment of the text is a spatio-

temporal one.


41

1.4.6 Identity and Solida~ity

F~om pa~ag~aph 2.4.4 above, it is clea~ that each individual

in any society exists in a netwo~k of social groups and that

the social group to which an individual belongs is a no~m-

enfo~cing factor upon him. The effect of this normative

pressure on the individual crystallizes when the individual

begins to feel a sense of commitment to the linguistic no~ms

of his group. The linguistic norms of his group now become

fo~ him a symbol of belonging.

A st~ong sense of group identity and solidaritygenerates cultu~al focusing, and this ~esults inboth the cla~ity of the linguistic no~ms of thegroup (as opposed to othe~ groups) and a pressureto conform as an exp~ession of individualidentity.

Downes 1984 177

All this is a ~esponse to the general expectation within a

g~oup that all the group members have to abide by the no~ms

of the group. This situation is, in fact, a mic~ocosm of

the general situation within the larger community. The~e is

much evidence in history to show that there is a very close

link between language and nationalism. There are few

count~ies, if any at all, that can be said to be

monolingual. In multilingual societies speake~s of a

particular language will always use their language as a

~allying symbol of identity and solidarity. One has only to

conside~ the ~ise of Afrikane~ nationalism, here in South


42

Africa, to see what a significant role language plays in

inculcating a sense of solidarity and identity within a

people. However, the intensity of this sense of identity

and solidarity is dependent upon the external forces that

threaten the speakers as a group. Thus, attachment to the

language can either be a resistance tool, or a unifying

factor, or, simply a conservation measure.

Identity and sOlidarity within a group expressed through

language operate in the same fashion. A group of migrant

workers from the rural areas may want to resist the social

norms of their new urban environment and tacitly agree to do

this by adhering at all times to their rural linguistic

behaviour patterns. Members of a religious group may take

so much pride in their group membership that they identify

themselves as such by constant use of a language with

religious overtones when speaking to one another. Consider

the following conversation:

A: Khaniphil' ekhaya.How are you all at horne?

B: Hayi mazalwana torho, ernandlen' eNkosi siphilile,asikaboniswa. Nakwezi ziphithi-phithi uSomandlausasisindisile. Niboniswe ntoni ke nina?o no, dear brother in Christ, through the Grace of theLord we are well; we have not had any problems. Evenin these upheavals the Almighty has saved us. Whatabout you all?

B: Hay' inene nakuthi, sicaka seNkosi, akubanga kho lubilwanto. Sibulela nj' iimfefe zoMdali, kuba nakuIemimoyan' ingendawo ikhoyo sibona kude kwalapha esasithekhu-u phantsi kwephiko lakhe.


43

o no, truly, dear servant of the Loed, we also have nothad any eeoblem. We are thankful to the Ceeatoe foeHis blessings, for, despite the cuecent atmospheee ofevil haeeenings, He has, ue to now, been shielding usundee His wings.

A: Hayi, makube njalo, mntwan' eNkosi!Let it be, child fo the Loed

In listening to the above, a non-native speakee of Xhosa who

has been deilied in ceetain fixed forms of phatic

communication would most probably find it difficult to

understand what was going on here, or, if he managed to

guess from certain words occurring in the utterances, this

deviation feom what his communication skills teacher taught

him would have nothing moee to tell him. Yet, moce than

just telling each othee about theie own and theie families'

state of health, oue two speakers are also confierning with

each.other their common eeligious group belonging. It is a

way of saying: ~We two are Christians and we ace peoud of it

and it accounts for oue still being alive in spite of the

cureent waves of danger. Let's stick together and thanks be

to God.~

Social solidarity is almost synonymous withlinguistic solidarity. Language serves moreeffectively than any other social element to holdindividuals together in social eelationships.Identity of language almost automatically createsa definite bond of undeestanding and sympathyamong people.

Heetzlee 1965 65


44

) Sociolinguists who have made quantitative analyses of

linguistic variations have found that even in these small

social groups, consistency in the use of group linguistic

norms has an association with sex, area and age. LesleyMilroy (1980 109), in his study of the speech of

Ballymacarrett discovered that the men in this community

were subject to more normative pressure than the women. The

~eason for this, he argues, is that employment opportunities

for men were more stable and localized than those of the

women because they worked in the local shipyards, while the

women had to move out of the area in search of employment

opportunities. Thus the men were mo~e closely-knit than the

women whose speech consequently was more vulnerable to

middle-class influence.

Another feature of identity and solidarity is their

mutability. This results in va~iation diffusion from group

to group. As we have seen earlier, group membership is not

mutually exclusive. Consequently, as Mil~oy (1980: 132)observes:

.•• the individual creates his system of verbalbehaviour so as to resemble those common to thegroup or groups with which he wishes from time totime to be identified.

An example of this would be 'the linguistic behaviour of

Xhosa migrant workers who normally display more loyalty to

their rural dialects during the period of their labour

i


45

contracts in the South African urban labour centres, and

remain passive participants in the urban dialects. (They

are passive participants because they understand the speech

of the city-dwellers but do not use it.) However, when they

return to their rural villages of origin, they use the

urban dialect. This linguistic behaviour is in line with

their other behaviour which they adopt intentionally when

they are back home to show that they are different from the

other villagers who have not been away to the labour

centres. Even though this maY yield negative responses from

certain sectors of the villagers, especially the older

folks, if carried to the extremes, it is more likely to

boost their image in the eyes of those who see them as

carriers of more "civilized" social standards.

1.4.7 Language Attitudes

Another factor which contributes to the emergence of

variations and which is closely linked to identity and

solidarity, is attitude to language. However, an individual

may have an attitude towards language which is not

conditioned by any desire to identify with a particular

social group. But this should not be construed as

suggesting that it is possible for a speaker to have an

attitude towards a language which is not a response to some

external factor.


46

If one were to imagine a language community which was

totally homogeneous and therefore whose language was totally

free from any influences that precipitate variation, it is

highly unlikely that one would conceive of members of such a

community as having any perceptible attitudes towards

language. The developing and shaping of attitudes towards

language is more possible where a language has variations

which are held together by diglossie relationships.

Linguistic varieties occupy different points on the status

spectrum. Some are considered ~purer" than others: some

are considered to be more prestigious than others. An

individual's speech may tend to move towards what he regards

as purer or more prestigious, or more fashionable, depending

on his perception of himself. The varieties may mean

different things to different sQeakers.~ Some may have a

nostalgic or sentimental attachment to what they regard as a

disappearing variety, while others may have a contemptuous

feeling towards the same variety. One has only to read the

Letters-to-the-Editor columns of the newspapers to see the

evidence of the attitudes towards language, or listen to

some of the phone-in radio programmes such as Chuckle-'n-

Chat Show on Radio 5.

The effect of language attitude is emergence and persistence

of variations in language since individual speakers have a

variety of value judgements.


47

1.4.8 Language and Geography

In the light of the current rate of population dispersal one

cannot write or talk of the notion of geography in the

context of language without feeling that this is at the

point of ceasing to be an issue in sociolinguistic studies.

This is so because the movement of people from one

geographical area to another is at such a pace that it

becomes difficult to state that the geographical placing of

speakers puts them on a differ~n~ liAguistic plane to that

of others. Despite this situation, however, it is still

possible to account for linguistic differentiation in terms

of different geographical settings of the speakers.

Therefore it is still possible to talk of urban Xhosa, rural

Xhosa, Eastern Cape English, Overberg Afrikaans, etc.

because of the differences in tone, accent, vocabulary etc.

1.5 Conclusion

From all the above, it should be clear that sociolinguistics

is not concerned only with language variation. Although

linguists who have interest in the study of language as a

social phenomenon would naturally focus their attention

mainly on language variation and the factors that are

responsible for its development, the study of linguistic

variation is but one aspect of the larger domain of the

study of language in society. Within this larger domain


48

would be such studies as language and nationalism;

bilingualism and multilingualism; language standardization

and language policy. By its very nature, this domain would

be a point of interest convergence for scholars from various

disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology,

philosophy, history, politics etc. Practitioners in

descriptive linguistics would naturally be interested in

that area of language in which descriptive linguistics was

implicated most - that is, variation.

How then, are language teaching and learning implicated in

sociolinguistics? The deviations from the standard dialect

which is the target in language teaching and learning,

manifest themselves in very many ways at virtually all

levels of language description. They thus pose an enormous

threat to the success of language teaching and learning in

general, and second language teaching and learning in

particular. Moreover, as has been remarked above,

sociolinguistics is not concerned only with language

variation. It involves, as Downes's definition quoted on

page 3 of this chapter shows, the relation between language

and society, i.e. the study of language in its social

context.

Today the emphasis in second language teaching has shifted a

great deal from the description of the structure of the

language to communicative competence. Consequently, second


49

language practitioners

of the importance of

language education.

are experiencing a growing awareness

the role that social context plays in

This awareness represents the

intersection of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics,

since applied linguists have to make use of insights gained

from sociolinguistic studies.


50

CHAPTER TWO

SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEYS AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION

2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter I have outlined, even though very

briefly, some of the major features that are responsible for

language variation. In this chapter I shall look at the

educational value of sociolinguistic surveys of individual

languages and the sociolinguistic profile of Xhosa.

Firstly, it is to give a background to some of the. learners'

and teachers' problems, the sources of which are to be found

outside the language itself. Secondly, it is to show how

the sociolinguistic profile of an individual language could

be of help in its teaching and learning, especially insofar

as these pertain to the second language.

2.2 Sociolinguistic Surveys and Education

From what has been said in the previous chapter about

defining sociolinguistics, it is clear that sociolinguistics

is a field of study which involves the interaction of

language and society. What is also clear from the previous

chapter is that linguists took a considerable time to take

any interest in sociolinguistic research and that those

scholdrs ~ho pioneered sociolinguistic studies did so


51

because of these studies' functional impoetance foe theie

non-linguistic fields of study, while linguists themselves

weee still immeesed in theoeetical linguistic debates.

Howevee, because of this inteeaction of language and

society, and as linguists became moee involved in

sociolinguistic debates, .~l~ was inevitable that theie

inceeasing undeestanding of sociolinguistic issues would

geadually lead them to discovecing the impoetance of the

applicability of the issues aeising feom these debates and

ceseaech findings to the widee domain of language in

society.

Stacting feom theie awaeeness and acceptance of the

vaeiability of language and the impoetance theeeof foe the

phonological and geammatical desceiption of non-standaed

dialects, to that of factoes conteibuting to the peocess of

language change and its mechanisms, one of the aeeas into

which sociolinguistics moved was that of the eelevance of

sociolinguistic eeseaech findings foe language teaching and

leaening. As these ace educational activities, this means

that theee was an inceeasing awaeeness of the usefulness of

sociolinguistic eeseaech findings in education genecally.

Education, as has been pointed out above, is but one aeea of

society which, it wa~ found, could benefit feom

sociolinguistic eeseaech. Theee ace othee aeeas such as

language policy planning, bilingualism and multi-lingualism,

all of which ace:


52

goveenmental oe quasi-goveenmental activitiespaeticulaely in multilingual situations, designedto influence oe solve linguistic peoblems.

Teudgill 1984 3

Although these also have some beaeing on education, the main

focus of this section will be on the applicability of

sociolinguistic survey findings to the teaching and leaening

of language in general and a second language in particular.

These government or quasi-government activities are engaged

in to give a sociolinguistic typology necessary for the

describing of what Stewart (1968) refers to as national

multilingualism. According to him, these activities,

although they usually vary greatly in detail, are usually

oriented towards:

1. The eventual elimination, by education ordecree, of all but one language, which is toeemain as the national language.

2. The eecognition and peeservation of importantlanguages within the national teeritory,supplemented by the adoption of one or morelanguages to serve for official purposes andfoe communication across language boundarieswithin the variation.

1968: 532

Foe the purposes of this thesis I shall illustrate the

distinction between these activities and the sociolinguistic

surveys envisaged in this chapter by drawing a line between

a sociolinguistic survey, which aims at providing a


5.3

sociolinguistic profile of a

providing a sociolinguistic

country, and that

profile of an

aimed at

individuallanguage. However, these complement each other in very

significant ways. A successful sociolinguistic survey of a

country is one that includes all the dialects of the

individual languages as well as their respective

distributions, and this information is as crucial to

language policy planning as it is to language teaching. The

mutual influence of the languages of a country on one

another cannot be ignored in the drawing up of a

sociolinguistic profile of a country in the same way as the

influence of other languages on a language cannot be ignored

in its teaching and learning. They also complement each

other in that, insofar as they both have a bearing on

education, a country's sociolinguistic profile helps in

determining which language or languages have to be taught at

the country's schools and where in the country these should

be taught, while an individual language's sociolinguistic

profile helps in determining which factors have to be taken

into account in the teaching of that particular language.

In simple terms, it can therefore be said that a

sociolinguistic survey of a country determines the "what" of

language teaching while a sociolinguistic survey of a

language determines the "how" of the teaching of that

language.


54

Although this chaptec's main focus is on the celevance of

sociolinguistic sucveys for second language teaching and

learning, perhaps all that may be necessacy to say hece with

cegard to sociolinguistic profiles of countries is that

theic usefulness has been bocne out by the huge sums of

money and man houcs that have been put into sociolinguistic

sucveys in the post-colonial countcies which, aftec

independence, found themselves with the problem of the

multilingual nature of theic societies.

With the cue rent increase in intecest in the teaching and

acquisition of communicative competence in second and

foceign languages and cross-cultucal communication,

resulting fcom an incceasing cross-cultucal intecaction,

sociolin~uis~ic sucveys are becoming moce and more important

foe education. It is perhaps for this reason that socio-

linguists ace beginning to talk of applied sociolinguistics.

In this bcief tceatment of the impoctance of sociolinguistic

sucveys of languages for theic teaching and leacning, I have

chosen ~o confine myself to thcee areas only even though

thece may be a longec bceak-down of relevant areas as should

be cleac fcom the following pacagcaphs. The thcee aceas I

have chosen ace: language vacieties, language attitudes and

language leacners' communication needs. While these are

tceated in general terms, more emphasis will be laid on

their celevance foe second language teaching and leacning.


55

2.2.1 Language Vaeieties

One majoc beeaktheough that has eesulted feom the advent and

develo~ment of sociolinguistics as a field of study has

been, as has aleeady been eemaeked, the acceptance of the

fact that language homogeneity is a myth. This has led tothe collapse

Chaptee Two

of Chomsky's

(paeageaphideal of univecsal geammaes.

2.4) I discussed some of

In

theantecedent factoes that peecipitate language change, theeeby

causing the emeegence of language variation. Among these was

the notion of social stratification. Much of what was said

in that paeageaph is relevant for this one. It will not be

repeated heee. Heee we will merely attempt to highlight the

significance of social steatification in language sueveys

with the aim of giving a backgeound to some of the issues

that will be discussed in the next two sub-paeagra~hs. In

doing this, reference will be made to some of the paeallels

that can be found between the study of dialects and the

study of varieties and which are pectinent in appliedsociolinguistics.

Daewin's theoey of evolution aeoused such wide inteeest

among scholacs that those working in the field of language

study felt that what was true of biological sciences could

also be teue of human languages. This inteeest usheeed in a

new eea of language study, namely the eea of histoeical-

compaeative linguistics.

investigation of geneticThis field was concerned with the

eelations. Details about the


56

develo~menc of this field of language study are ~eri~heral

to our ~urposes here. The underlying postulation which was

at the heart of these studies was that the various nations

of the world were the end-~roduct of the evolutionary

process which was initiated by disintegration in language

and customs. A number of sources were used in collecting

evidence to su~~ort this ~ostulation, such as:

••. manuscri~t remains of extinctliterary texts, inscri~tionsexem~lifying earlier stages oflanguages.

languages oror documents

modern literary

Gumperz 1972: 2

Using the neo-grammarians' theory of sound change, other

scholars constructed proto-languages such as Carl Meinhof's

Ur-Bantu (Proto-Bantu). The works of dialectologists became

useful not only for the field of linguistics but also for

the fields of administration and education in the case of

colonial ~owers. Their importance can be measured by the

vast number of areas in which they have been a~plied and the

fact that historical linguistics is still one of the major

components in the linguistic studies at universities today.

Naturally the scholars in early dialectological studies

concentrated their attention on similarities between

languages within the respective families to which they

belonged and considered the dialects of individual languages

as the final stage of the language evolution process. The

unfortunate as~ect of this is that dialectologists·regarded


57

the concept

applied to

of evolution as a phenomenon which could not be

society and the~efo~e to language beyond the

dialect. It ~ep~esents evolution as a phenomenon which must

g~ind to a halt at some point. Howeve~, the~e may be

possible explanations fo~ this

seen any need fo~ going beyond

language g~oups (nations) and

stance. They may not have

the dialect because the

the language sub-g~oups

(speake~s of thei~ ~espective dialects) we~e ve~y clea~ly

distinguishable. The~efo~e it was not the diffe~ences but

the simila~ities that they needed to focus thei~ attention

on in o~de~ to justify thei~ hypothesis. The alleged

~esidual natu~e of these simila~ities and thei~ ~elative

paucity made them a mo~e att~active and exciting a~ea of

~esea~ch in an atmosphe~e dominated by Da~win's theo~y of

evolution.

I shall ~efe~ to the va~ious language g~oups as language

communities and the ~eason fo~ this is explained below.While the schola~s we~e deeply involved in thesedialectological studies anothe~ p~ocess had al~eady begun to

take place and was continuing to do so as a ~esult of some

behaviou~al and othe~ facto~s ~elated to the dynamics and

st~uctu~ing of society.

As the disinteg~ation of the p~oto-societies and thei~

p~oto-languages had ~esulted in the eme~gence of diffe~ent

societies with diffe~ent languages, the societies developed


58

into vacious strata which wece chacactecized, intec alia, by

differences in speech behaviour. The elements of eachsocial stcatum were dcawn to one anothec by a vaciety of

ties, all of which found expcession in similacity of speechbehaviour. I shall call these strata speech corrurrunities and

their elements members of a speech corrurrunity. What then isa speech community and what is the significance of a speechcommunity in a language survey?

2.2.1.1 The Speech Community

Thece seems to be no unanimity among sociolinguists as to

what a speech community is. It seems too that attempts to

define a speech community are determined to a very large

extent both by the orientation of the person defining it and

by the context of the definition. In some definitionsspeech community is tceated as synonymous with languagecommunity. Fcc Hectzlec, foe instance, people that speakthe same language constitute a language family iccespective

of geogcaphical distribution, although in the same vein heweites:

Thus the 'English' speech community includesEngland, the United States, English Canada, NewZealand, Austcalia and much of South Africa.

1965: 34


59

Tnese speech oe language communities, he says, each have

"eegional (geogeaphical) sublanguages, known as dialects"

and that there ace "special languages among diffeeent

functional geoups " (Ibid)

Heetzlee's view is shaeed by Bloomfield and Chomsky.

Bloomfield eegaeded a speech community as:

.•• a geoup of people who use the same system ofspeech signals.

1961 29

Chomsky (1965 : 3) eefees to a "completely homogeneous

speech community" whose speakees know its languagepeefectly. These views cendec "speech community" aeedundant concept.

Gumpeez defined a speech community feom within a socially

defined univecse. In his definition, a speech community is:

Any human aggeegate chaeacteeizedshaeed body of vecbal signs andsimilae aggeegates by significantlanguage usage.

by means of aset off feomdiffeeences in

1972: 219

Although Gumpeez's definition includes also "modeen nations

divisible into small eegions", it eepeesents a eemaekable

shift feom the eaeliee ones cited above since in it ace


60

included "even occupational associations"and "neighbouehood

gangs" •

A complete beeak with these definitions came with Labov

whose definition dismissed the notion of similaeity of foems

used and emphasized the notion of the similaeity of noems as

centeal in the definition of a speech community. His thesis

was:

The speech community is not defined by any maekedageeement in tne use of language elements, so muchas by paeticipation in a set of shaeed noems;these noems may be obseeved in oveet types ofevaluative behavioue, and by unifoemity ofabsteact patteens of vaeiation which aee invaeiantin cespect to paeticulae levels of usage.

1972: 120

r have aleeady mentioned the othee factoes that bind a

speech community togethee in addition to the noems (seepaeageaph 2.4.4). R.T. Bell goes even fuethee by adding

anothee peeeequisite featuee which he considees ceucial in

the definition of a speech community, namely attitude, when

he suggests that it should be seen as:

•.. a gcoup of individuals who believe themselvesto belong to such a community.

1976 217

Foe the pueposes of this thesis the last theee definitions

shall be adopted, especially that of Labov, and this


61•

accounts foe the distinction I make between a language

community and a speech community. I may note, howevee, that

Labov's definition has been vecy sevecely cciticized by

Suzanne Romaine, who is convinced that, if Labov is coccect,

then:

••• speech communities do not know how to behave;oe else linguists do not know what speechcommunities ace oe how they behave.

1982: 15

She believes the lattee is the case. Suzanne Romaine, along

with Nancy Docian (1982), believes that any definition of a

speech community should take into account also those membees

of a speech community who have passive oe semi-passive

competence but ace actively co~petent in undecstanding and

intecpceting the nocms shaced by the speech community,

because as she says:

We scaccely know how hetecogenous some speechcommunities ace.

Ibid

Fucthecmoce, this does not seem to cepcesent anyconsidecable shift fcom Labov's definition but cathec is

complementacy theceto since Labov's emphasis is also on

shaced nocms.


62

2.2.1.2 Speech Communities and Language Sucveys

The significance of speech communities in language sucveys

can be summed up by saying that they yield vaciation in

language. The biggest thceat to the success of any language

sucvey, especially one that is intended to uncovec

infocmation cci tical to the teaching of that language as a

second language, is the point of depactuce that assumes

homogeneity of language. This assumption leads the

cesearcher to see the language community as one entity and

disregacd the various elements that constitute it and the

effect that these may have on their sum total. A suitable

point of departuce can be best illustcated as one that sees

language as a jungle made up of a number of diffecent

species with diffecences in theic respective functional

values and vitality potential. The jungle itself is an

abstcaction. Thus, no-one, who is interested in

undecstanding this jungle, can affocd to ignoce the various

species that constitute it. Speech communities ace

therefoce the social elements that focm the bigger community

of the language jungle. All those featuces that set each

speech community off fcom the othecs find expcession in

theic linguistic behaviour which is diffecent fcom that of

the othecs. These diffecences ace detecmined to a lacge

extent by the intensity of the demaccation lines sepacating

the speech com~unities. This is how vacieties in a language

emerge. As the speech communities yield vacieties, the


63

vacieties themselves ceflect the speech communities within

the language community. The impoetance of speech

by the impoctance of vaeieties

impoetance of vacieties incommunities can be measueed

in a language suevey. The

language education is discussed latee ill this chaptee.

Howevee, I may just mention those areas of language

education foe which the identification of speech communities

is ceucial. The link between language and cultuee is

univecsally eecognized eesulting in the eecognition and

acknowledgement of the impoetance of culture in language

study. This emphasizes the impoetance of the speech

communities since they eepeesent the vaeious sub-cultuees

within the cultuce of a community. As the speech

communities exist in diglossic relationships and since

membeeship of them is not mutually exclusive, infoemation

about them can also theow light on situations foe which a

paeticulde vaeiety is appcopeiate. Those involved in

language syllabus design can benefit feom theie knowledge of

the speech communities of the community in which the

syllabus is to be used. This is teue too foe those who

compile coueses on communication foe special pucposes such

as woeker and occupational geoups. The language leaenees'

communication needs can be successfully met if the speech

communities ace accueately identified. The achievement of

some of the objectives of the language syllabus depend on

awaeeness. The lexicogcaphec and the teanslation


64

scientist/practitioner, even though their work may not have

a very direct bearing on teaching, also stand to benef~t

from information about speech communities.~-.~Thus the

taxonomy of the language varieties, be they sociolinguistic

or discourse varieties, which is becoming even more

important, with the emphasis on second language learning now

being on communicative competence, relies for its accuracy

on the proper identification of speech communities.

It should be noted, however, that within each speech

community, there may be differences in the choice of forms

according to geographical distribution. The speech

community of dock workers in Cape Town may have forms which

are different from those of their counterparts in East

London.

2.2.2 Language Attitudes

In the previous chapter it was shown how attitude towards a

language contributes to its diversification. It was shown

that a situation of language homogeneity is not conducive to

the development and/or formulation of clearly observable

language attitudes. Thus language heterogeneity is the

premise for these.

In this section language attitude will be considered from

three further points of view. First, since we are here


65

concecned with the contcibution that sociolinguistic surveys

can make towacds language teaching, attention will be given

to the people's attitudes towacds the vacieties of a

language~ Second will be consideced the attitude of the

speakecs of one language towacds another one which co-exists

with theics. Thicd, and vecy bciefly, I shall considec also

the attitude of the speakecs of a language towacds the

mannec in which theic own language is spoken by the speakecs

of othec languages. The second and thicd points of view ace

even moce celevant to this thesis, since it is concecned

with the sociolinguistics of second language teaching. and

leacning. They ace even moce so in the context of teaching

an Afcican language as a second language in South Afcica

because of the unique socio-political natuce of the South

Afcican society whece the sepacation of caces is

on the othec it

Thus, foc the pucposes of this section,

is tceated as having a bilatecal natuce.

it is taken as intecnally pcojected, while

is taken as extecnally pcojecte&. It is

constitutionalized.

language attitude

On the one hand

intecnally pcojected when it cefecs to the people's attitude

towacds the vacieties existing within theic language. The

extecnally pcojected attitude is two-dimensional as shown in

the second and thicd points of view above. The diffecence

between these, howevec, is vecy macginal since the extent to

which a language is divecsified is invaciably conditioned by

diffecences in the backgcounds of those who speak it.

Examples of these diffecences in backgcounds ace minocity


66

groups such as immigcants who find themselves compelled by

cectain pcessuces to give up theic native languages in

favouc of the language of the majocity gcoup until they

eventually become linguistically assimilated to the lattee

gcoup. Togethec with othec factoes opecating within the

majocity gcoup's language, they conteibute to the emeegence

of vacieties in the language. Peehaps a significant

diffecence between these last two peojections of attitude is

the extent to which the exteenally pcojected attitude is

embedded in the histocy of socio-political celations that

exist between the speakecs of the two languages. Anothee

even moce significant diffecence between them, foe the

pucposes of this thesis, is the extent to which an

extecnally pcojected attitude affects second language

teaching. This is compacable with the extent to which an

intecnally pcojected attitude affects fiest language

teaching.

2.2.2.1 Intecnally Peojected Attitude

Ryan, Giles and Sebastian have peovided an ocganizational

fcamewock within which attitudes towacds language vacieties

may be studied. This feamewoek consists of theee notions,

namely the notions of:

•.. sociostcuctucal detecminants undeclying thedevelopment and expeession of language attitudes

the thcee types of measucement techniqueand the two pcimaey evaluative dimensions.

1982: 3


67

Feom a numbee of ~ossible socio-steuctueal

deteeminants they cons idee the most impoetant ones. The

fiest is standaedization and the second is vitality. In the

peevious paeageaphs eeference has been made to the standaed

vaeiety.

The primaey distinction amongupon the extent to whichstandaedized.

vaeieties is basedthey have been

Ibid

Sociolinguists woeking in the aeea of language vaeieties aee

unanimous in feeling that to assert that one vaeiety of

language is bettee than the others is a myth. It is quite

extensively documented in sociolinguistic literatuee that

the principles that foem the basis of standaedization of one

paeticulae vaeiety instead of anothee lie outside of the

vaeiety itself. In othee woeds, a vaeiety has no inteinsic

value that justifies its being chosen foe standaedizing.

The main deteemining factoe in the advancement of the'

process of the standardization of a variety is the socio-

political power of those who speak it. This qrcup of

poweeful elites codify a set of norms which define the

"correct" usage of their variety and these norms get'

accepted by the speakers of other vaeieties who, as a result

of their powerlessness, have no say in the matter. The

power elites, using their socio-political powee, then

proceed to make these norms available to the people in the


68

form of dictionaries, grammars, phrase books etc. These are

backed up with a language policy which entrenches the

standardized variety. Such policy stipulates that the

variety be used in institutions such as the government, tne

schools and in the mass media and literature. Hence such

idealized forms of speech as the B.B.C. or Queen's English.

For these reasons, the variety enjoys the advantage of a

wider dissemination over the others and also the advantage

of being associated with the nation's formal social

institutions and all the social interaction values in these

institutions. Ultimately this variety becomes synonymous

with language in terms of perception, with the result that

whenever people talk of language x, y or z, this is a

reference to the standardized variety. Other factors

pertinent to the process of standardization are to be found

in the history of a nation.

The fact that Eastern Cape Xhosa (the Xhosa of the

amaNgqika) became the standard dialect of Xhosa is a result

of historical coincidence. Had the missionary societies

started their work among the amaMpondo and had they started

schools in pondoland, there is no doubt that isiMpondo would

have been the standard dialect today instead of Xhosa. The

missionaries working among the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape,

motivated by their desire to have their converts able to

read and write, committed Xhosa to writing and taught their

converts reading and writing skills. As Ryan et al. say:


69

Vaciants which ace used in weitten communicationace much moce likely to be standacdized than thosewhich ace used solely in the ocal modality.

Ibid

This is exactly how Easteen Cape Xhosa came to be the

standacd.

In South Afcica, howevee, we have a linguistic situation

which is intecesting in its complexity. As a cesuit of the

multilingual natuce of the countcy thece ace as many

standacd vacieties as thece ace ethnic gcoups. Because of

the political powec facto~ the national language choice has

not been detecmined by numecical stcength. As a cesuit of

factoes which ace to be found in the histocy of the

celations between the two minocity ethnic gcoupS that focm

the culing elite, as well as factoes in theic ~espective

histocical backgcounds, and also as a cesult of theic

equality in socio-political powec, theic ces~ective powec

elite vacieties have become official languages. This

situation, togethec with the cuc~ent waves of political

thoughts, have given impetus to academic debates as to what

the language ~olicy will be in a politically changed South

Afcica. The South Afcican situation and the academic

debates on futuce language policy ace, howeve~, celevant to

my discussion hece only insofac as they ace examples of the

intecaction between histocy and standacdization and insofac


70

as they have bearing on the shaping of language attitudes

that are now, and in the future will be, significant for

language teaching and learning.

A significant aspect of the process of standardization is

that in very many cases it conflicts with reality. The

choice of a standard vaciety may not be a reflection of the

general feeling of the population. The assumed, or alleged,

number of its speakers may conflict with the number of

people who actually use it in their everyday lives. R. Y.

Bourhis (1982: 37) cites the example of France where the

National Convention in 1793 commissioned Abbe Gregoire to

undertake a language survey aimed at determining the number

of French speakers in France. In his report, which was

curiously entitled: "Report on the needs and means to

destroy the 'patois' and to universalize the use of the

French language", Gregoire had to reveal that out of a

population of 26 million people in France at the time, only

3 million could speak the standard variety fluently. This

was despite the fact that as far back as 1539 Ile de France

was declared by the power elites to be the only official

language of France and all other varieties were banned.

Notwithstanding this revelation, contempt for other

varieties continued and manifested itself in a number of

laws that were passed to entrench the standard variety. A

similar situation existed in Spain where the standard

dialect is Castilian solely because, as St Clair says:


71

••• it is the dialect that was spoken unde~ thepolitical hegemony of Castile at the time whenthis g~oup defeated the othe~ p~ovinces of Spainand imposed its ~egional dialect on them.

1982: 165

The Castilian Spanish which was imposed as the standa~d

va~iety did not succeed in stifling the aspications of the

othe~ va~ieties' speake~s such as Catalan, Basque, Gascan

and Galician.

This dete~minant ~elates:

to the degcee to which a vaciety has visiblevitality •••

Ryan and Giles 1982: 4

It is celated to the su~vey of speech communities discussed

above because it is conce~ned with a va~iety's potential to

sucvive. The factoes that a~e necessacy fo~ this potential

to sucvive a~e the inte~action netwo~ks that actually use it

and its essential uses. The mo~e inte~action netwocks the~e

ace that use it and the g~eate~ the ~ange and impoctance of

its functions a~e, the gceate~ the potential to sucvive

becomes. A ~eduction in the nume~ical stcength of the

speakecs and in the functional value of a vaciety cesults in

the weakening of its vitality. In a pape~ cead at a

confe~ence of the Afcican Languages Association of Southe~n


72

Africa (Western Cape Branch) in 1984, Professor Louwrens of

the University of South Africa showed how the pai variety of

Sotho has lost its vitality as a result of these same

factors. The province of Quebec in Canada provides an

example of an increase in the vitality of a variety.

Because of the numerical strength of the speakers and the

increasing functional value of Quebe)ois, which the French

Canadians use more for all their daily interaction than they

use the French of France, the French Canadians have gained

the legitimation of Quebesois. The economic importance of

the area in which a variety is spoken also affects its

vitality. An example of this is the Catalan variety of

Spanish. Catalonia is a very heavily industrialized area of

Spain, and as a result, Catalan is spoken by people who

primarily belong to the middle and upper socioeconomic

classes. The economic strength of the area has rendered the

recognition of the variety inevitable in various domains.

M.A. Carranza says:

By the late 1960s the push for language autonomywas being led not only by the lower but alsomiddle-class Catalanians. The open repression bythe Nationalist government only served toreinforce the determination of the people to makeCatalan an official language. In many waysCatalan did become the official language ofworkers, students and politicians.

1982: 66


73

Against the backgeound of socioeconomic weakness the

goveenment's eepeessive measuees would have succeeded in

eliminating this vaeiety.

Anothee factoe conteibuting to the vitality of a vaeiety is

the political climate of a countey which yields ceetain

attitudes within the population in geneeal and the vaeious

speech communities in paeticulae. An example of this is the

development of the Black Powee movement in the United States

of Ameeica as a eesult of which the ingeoup values of, Black

English became well eecognized and the Afeo-Ameeicans became

less and less willing to give up theie speech vaeiety.

Theee is evidence of this unwillingness in the language used

in some books weitten by Afeo-Ameeicans, especially those in

which peide and need foe it in blackness aee extolled. The

exteact below is taken feom Soledad Beothee:

Inside the joint it is the same, only much moeeintense. A sense of teeeoe, beteayal andinsecueity peevails at all times •••.. An Italianin the Syndicate at one time killed a Mexican inFalsan because the Mex suddenly staeted tellingeveeyone not to teust someone, who was supposed tobe a cat. The pigs wanted to put him out ofbusiness (impoeting dope into the joint) andwanted to get the Mex killed. So they call theMex into theie office and showed him some phoneypapees indicating that the guy was a eat.

Jackson 1970: 187

The possible effect of the South Afeica Black poets weiting

in English may speed up the awaeeness and use of Black


74

English in South Afcica even in sectocs whece its use has

hithecto been consideced highly impcopec.

The vitality and standacdization detecminants complement

each othec. Since the vacious intecaction netwocks ace held

togethec in diglossic celations, vaciety that,the

subsequent to the opecating of the factocs mentioned above,

secves the function of outgcoup and focmal communication

moce than the othecs acquices a stcongec vitality. It

thecefoce stands to ceason that such a vaciety stands a

bettec chance than all the othecs to be standacdized.

Standacdization in tucn stcengthens its vitality whil~ it

may cesuIt in the decline of the vitality of some of the

othec vacieties, as shown by the pai example.

: A sizeable amount of wock on the

techniques of measucing language attitudes has been done,

mostly within the cealm of social psychology. Sociologists

and sociolinguists have also made a considecable

contcibution in the field, which, its vecyby

intecdisciplinacy natuce, calls foc symbiotic celationships

among scholacs wocking in it. The wocks of these

sociolinguists outline the actual modus opecandi which the

ceseacchecs followed and the kinds of cesponses that wece

elicited, as well as some of the factocs that have a

potential to cause a gap between the cesponses elicited and

theic accucacy. The pcesence of such factocs has made a


75

positive contribution to the field insofar as they have

given more insight into the complex nature of the field and

into the problems that may face a prospective researcher.

The planning of researc work can only benefit from this

insight.

In 1960 Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner and Fillenbaum published

"Evolution of reactions to spoken language" in Journal of

Abnormal and Social psychology 60 (pp. 44-51). In this work

they introduced the "matched-guise" technique in measuring

reactions towards French and English guises in Montreal.

This technique involved asking the English and French

respondents to evaluate the personality of a speaker after

listening to his tape-recorded reading of the same passage

in each of two or more varieties. All the English

respondents rated the English guise more favourably than

tney did the French guise. A conclusion was reached by the

researchers that, while the speakers of the high variety

responded favourably towards their variety, those of the low

variety had also adopted the same attitude towards the

variety of the high-status Lambert and hisgroup.

colleagues improved on this technique in 1967 by making a

more specific list of personality dimensions such as:

••. speaker's competence (e.g. dimensions likeintelligence and industriousness), personalintegrity (helpfulness and trustworthiness) andsocial attractiveness (friendliness, sense ofhumour)

Edwards 1985: 148


76

Later scholars adapted and used Lambert's technique as a

basis for their own studies. More factors were taken into

account and

diversified.

the backgrounds of the respondents were

Other means of eliciting responses were

employed, such as direct que~tions, interviews and the

indirect or anonymous observation of attitud~ from language

used in speech and mass media.

A number of factors have been found to play a significant

role in measuring language attitudes. The sex, the age, the

place of residence of the respondents, the spatio-temporal

context of the interview and the role relations between

interviewer and respondent. In the next paragraph

(2.2.2.2) reference will be made to another factor which,

from all the comments on attitude measurement techniques,

seems to stand out as the most important for the purposes of

this thesis, namely, the socio-political setting of the

research.

: This socio-structural dimension of the

framework within

concerned with

which to consider

the investigation

language attitude is

of the different

perceptions that are evoked by the different varieties

insofar as these perceptions manifest themselves in

of language preference for two

that have a diglossic relationship.distinctive patterns

contrasting varietiesTnere are some factors which determine variety preference


77

pattecns. The socioeconomic status of the speakecs of a

vaciety significantly influences the pecception of theic

celative peestige. Thus speakecs of the 'low' vaciety may

choose to use a 'high' vaciety in cectain social intecaction

contexts simply because, in these intecaction contexts, they

may wish to pcoject the same status that is associated with

its speakecs. Invaciably this vaciety is the one that has

been standacdized and some of the ceasons foe its being

associated with a high status ace the same as those that led

to its being standacdized. Howeveé, the speakec of the non-

standacd vacieties may associate this high vaciety also with

such attcibutes as intelligence, expectise and confidence

(Ryan et al. 1982: 8). Anothec factoc which detecmines

vaciety pcefecence pattecns is solidacity. Speakecs of a

'low' vaciety may use it foe ingcoup intecaction as ,a symbol

of ingcoup solidacity. Invaciably the contexts of such

ingcoup intecaction ace those of intimate fciendship, family

and infocmality. In some situations this feeling of ingcoup

solidacity is motivated by a desice to cesist cectain

pcessuces that theeaten the autonomy of the gcoup since

one's native language nocmally invokes feelings of belonging

and unity. Such pcessuces usually emanate fcom the natuce

of the socioeconomic celations that exist between the two

gcoups of speakecs. If the celations ace healthy thece is a

macked decline in the feeling of ingcoup solidacity, while a

decline in healthy inteegcoup celations cesults in an

incceased sense of gcoup solidacity.


78

Variety preference patterns are also determined by what John

Edwards (1985: 151) refers to as linguistic accommodation.

This has already been referred to in Chapter Although

this was in a different context, the principles involved are

the same and will therefore not be gone into again here.

Giles and Powesland (1975) as quoted by Edwards (1985: 152),

sum up the accommodation theory when they define it as:

••• an attempt on the part of the speaker tomodify or disguise his persona in order to make itmore acceptable to the person addressed.

Despite Giles' and Powesland's definition quoted above, a

speaker may not be consciously aware at all times that, in

addressing the listener, he is accommodating the speech of

the listener in his manner of speech. Depending on the

relations that hold between the speaker and the listener,

the accommodation attempts mayor may not yield the required

acceptance. The listener may feel that such accommodation

attempts are indicative of a condescending attitude on the

part of the speaker if their social relations are negative.

True as it is, this is quite unfortunate because effective

communication can be severely hampered if one of the

speakers is perceived to have a low opinion of the other.

In a country where there is polarization of language groups

and in which intergroup relations can therefore be easily

strained, this can have very serious implications for second

language learning.


79

2.2.2.2 Extecnally pcojected Attitude

The points that have been discussed in the above pacagcaph

are equally valid hece. As in the case of attitudes towacds

vacieties within an individual language, in a society that

i~ multilingual thece is nocmally one language which assumes

a higher status than the othecs. The ceasons are the same

as those that make one variety highec than the othecs. Even

in South Africa whece English and Afrikaans ace the official

languages, English is viewed by the majocity of speakecs of

Black languages as more pcestigious than Afcikaans. These

points shall thecefoce not be cepeated here. Howevec, from

theie, one seems to stand out as moce impoctant in

detecmining the attitudes of the speakecs of one language

towacds anothec, namely the socio-political context may be

looked at fcom both a diachconic and a synchconic point of

view. The diachronic point of view, on the one hand, takes

into account the histocy of the socio-political celations of

the speakecs of the concecned language. On the other hand,

the synchronic point of view considecs the curcent socio-

political celations.

Speakecs of one language may have negative attitudes towacds

anothec because theic past relations wece charactecized by

conflict and domination, especially if these cesulted in

what was undecstood to be language oppcession. As St Claic

puts it:


80

These patterns of development may have oncesurfaced in the form of social movements and, evenwhen these events are now part of the writtenrecord, their forces still remain.

1982: 164

The history of the Afrikaans language in South Africa is an

example of this. The formation in 1875 of such

organizations as the Genootskap van Regter Afrikaanders "om

te staan vir ons Taal, ons Nasie en ons Land" and other

subsequent organizations such De zuid-Afrikaanseas

Taalbond, were all a culmination of dissatisfaction with

what was seen as language oppression.

St Clair goes on to say:

Th3y are evident in the subtle metaphors ofeveryday speech; and they can be found implicitlystated in standardized texts, teacher trainingcourses legislation and administrator'shandbooks.

Ibid.

Afrikaans and English speakers in South Africa, for example,

may have mutual negative attitudes towards one another's

language solely because of historical factors despite the

parity in socio-political power and despite the relatively

narrow gap between their respective cultures.


81

The synchronic point of view can be exemplified in the South

African context by looking at the relations of Blacks and

Whites. South African Blacks may have negative attitudes

towards Afrikaans and English not only because of historical

factors but also because of current socia-political

relations. An example of this is the triggering of the 1976uprisings by the enforcement of Afrikaans as the medium of

instruction in Black schools. As in the case of varieties

within an individual language, increased political awareness

tends to draw people closer and closer to their language and

further away from the one they associate with their

oppressors. Indeed, a study of attitudes towards a language

is the study of attitudes towards its speakecs. Among

Blacks in South Africa my observation1 for instance, is that

since the development of the Black Consciousness Movement in

the sixties, the use of English in informal interaction

among people of the same language is no longer considered as

proper. Yet prior to this period, this was not only common'

but also considered a high status symbol, obviously because

of the traditional influence of mission schools and the

prestige attached to English. This point may interest John

Edwards who seems to confuse the growth of the number of

Slack people who, as a result of growing literacy, are

becoming proficient in speaking English and the number of

those who actually use it. He says that, among the Blacks,

English "is generally viewed as more prestigious ••• and

English speaking is on the increase" (1985: 173). On the


82

contrary, the number of those who are products of mission

schools is decreasing. The schools are no longer as strict

about the use of English by the pupils on the school

premises as they used to be. The so-called national states

and the independent homelands are giving official langu?ge

status to their respective languages. Edwards' alleged

increase in the use of English is not proved by any

increase in competence and proficiency on the part of the

Black pupils as teachers of English and university lecturers

would verify.

Another aspect of the synchronic point of view is the notion

of culture. The question of culture does, however,

interlock with historical factors since views held by

speakers of one language about their culture may be rooted

in the history of their relations with the speakers of

another language. These may strengthen or weaken attachment

to their culture. If, historically, the relations had been

those of ill-will, those who feel that they suffered more

from this ill-will may tend to be inhibited in assimilating

the culture of those who inflicted the suffering. This may

find expression in their attitude towards the language of

their former tormentors. If, on the other hand, history

does not provide them with any grounds for cultural

inhibition and the two cultu~es themselves are not very

different, the extent of conservatism may be a factor in

determining culture values and therefore language attitudes.


83

The more conservative the

more sensitive they are

speakers of

to cultural

a languagé are, the

assimilation. This

resistance to cultural assimilation also finds expression in

language attitudes since language is one of the instruments

for maintaining group identity. In such a conservative

language group the use of another language may be frowned

upon as indicative of cracks in the walls of cultural

identity.

The issue of culture interlocks also with that of current

socio-political climate. The politically disadvantaged tend

to use culture as one weapon in their fight to change their

position. Therefore they attach more value to their

culture. The implications of this for language attitude are

tremendous.

The gap between the culture of the speakers of one language

and that of the speakers of another also plays a significant

role in determining language attitudes. A narrow culture

gap enhances the chances of mutual understanding. The

understanding and appreciation of a culture are bound to

have a positive effect on attitudes towards the language in

which that culture is ~xpressed, since they result in more

interaction with the speakers and more interest in the use

of their language. The opposite is the case when the gap is

wloe.


84

Notwithstanding all the above, it should always be noted

tnat practical considerations such as functional expediency

may overweigh negative views about a language, and this may

not be reflected in the responses elicited by means of

direct questions. It should be remembered:

that people are not generally swayed by abstractor romantic appeals which cannot compete with moreimmediate exigencies

Edwards 1985: 141

This underlines the importance of the use of anonymous

observation in the survey of language attitudes. For, this

reason Edwards (p.140) warns that, in assessing attitudes, a

careful distinction should always be made between attitude

and belief, even though belief is an element of attitude. A

person may believe and acknowledge that a language is useful

and important for him and his kind in their everyday lives,

but ne may also hate it because of what he may feel it

stands for.

There are a number of other factors that contribute to the

problem of eliciting responses that are d true reflection of

language attitudes. These are such factors as the

researcher himself, the institution under whose auspices the

research is carried out, the role relations that exist

between researcher and respondent and the physical setting

of the interview itself. The researcher, for example, may


85

be influenced (in framing the questions for the interview)

by his own biases as well as those of the institution for

which he is working. This could be worse even if he has

not been involved in the framing of the questions since he

could then be restricted by the questionnaire. It would not

be far-fetched, for instance, to suspect that when the

National Convention commissioned Gregoire to undertake the

survey in 1793 (para. 2.2.2.1 above) they were secretly

hoping that the outcome of the survey would justify the

enforcement of Ile de France. It is noteworthy that in the

Human Sciences Research Council's report on English and

Afrikaans amongst Blacks in South Africa, which outlines the

findings of· a survey completed during December 1975 by G.K.

Schuring, there is no indication, according to responses

analysed, of negative attitudes towards Afrikaans. On the

contrary, the responses obtained induced the researcher to

end the report by saying:

The continued existence of Afrikaans amongstBlacks is thus apparently not primarily determined'in the streets of Soweto' but by the Whites. Theknowledge that they acquire of Afrikaans will bedecided by the extent to which Whites develop,enrich and use this language.

Schuring 1979: 63

Yet what happened on 16 June 1976 is now history. One

cannot help feeling that, had the research been carried out,

say, under the auspices of the Black Peoples Convention, the

report would have ended differently. Perhaps a classic


86

example of possible disparity between pronounced and actual

attitude is provided by the fact that ~ Minister of

Education in the Transkei made the following statement in1972:

My government has no intention of pushingAfrikaans into the background. It is a languagenot generally spoken in the Transkei, but as longas it remains a language of the Republic, ourchildren will learn it.

Rapport 22 October 1972(as quoted by Schuring1979: 63)

However, when the Transkei got its independence in 1976

Afrikaans ~as removed from the schools' curricula.

The researcher may not be conversant with the behavioural

patterns of the community in which he is working. Can oneconsider as significant, in measuring attitudes towards

English among Blacks, that there is more English used at

parties than in any other situation, according to Schuring

(1979: 21), given the fact that there usually is drinking of

alcohol at parties and the fact that intoxication tends to

have an effect on linguistic behaviour? Some people tend to

use more English when intoxicated. Moreover, the questiondoes not specify the kind of party in terms of whether it isformal or informal.


87

The social distance between cespondent and intecviewec and

the setting of the intecview may also affect the accucacy of

the cesponses.

pcedict theRespondents ace known foe theic capacity to

expectations of the intecviewec and theic

tendency to want to conficm these expectations. It is theunfoctunate fate of ceseacch into some issues that the

ceseacchec has no access to the innec feelings of the

cespondent and that indicect obsecvations, foe obvious

ceasons, ace not always accocded the same validity that is

accocded to cesponses dicectly elicited within visibly

identifiable data bases. How often, foe instance, does one

heac a pecson say "I like to use language x because you can

use it anyhow and mix it with tsotsitaal, language y oe z.

I don't woccy about gcammac as long as the message is

conveyed, unlike in language y whece I have to think of

coccect gcammac."?

Thece ace a numbec of othec factoes that have a beacing on

the pcactical cealities of a countcy's situation.

Schucing's sucvey, foe instance, ceflects a low peccentage

of Blacks who cead newspapees in theic languages, but he

does concede that this may possibly be due to the fact that

"newspapees and peciodicals ace not available in all the

Bantu languages." (p.29) In addition to this, anothec

possible explanation may be the fact that in the case of the

few available newspapees and peciodicals, these appeac


88

mostly weekly and monthly respectively and their news

coverage tends to be too parochial.

All these inhibiting factors do not, however, detract from

the value of responses directly elicited because they are

still capable of producing a considerable wealth of new and

valuable information. Instead they call for further

exploration into the ways and means of reducing - and even

eliminating - their chances of affecting the accuracy ofresponses.

The research done by Lambert et al., referred to above,

showed that speakers of one language can have a negative

attitude in their evaluation of the manner in which their

language is spoken by speakers of other languages. We have

also mentioned in the previous chapter the tendency ofspeakers of

speakers byone language to accommodate other language-

speaking in the same "incorrect" manner. The

converse of this can be a reluctance to respond positively

to the speech of other language-speakers if it is regardedas "incorrect". This may result in a breakdown not only 1

communication but also in intergroup relations. It may have

serious implications for second language teaching as it can

result in the adoption of biased evaluative methods if the

teacher is a first language speaker who is consciously or

unconsciously opposed to the "incorrect" use of his

language. A positive attitude will manifest itself, for


89

instance, in complimenting the non-mothe~-tongue speake~ fo~

his attempts and in showing app~eciation fo~ them. This

encou~ages the lea~ne~-speake~. Amongst Xhosa speake~s, fo~

instance, it is ve~y common to hea~ people say of a lea~ne~-

speake~, "0, usithetha kamnandi isiXhosa lo mn~u",("O, this

pe~son speaks good Xhosa".) while a mother-tongue speake~'s

"inco~~ect" use of Xhosa is less tole~ated. In Chapte~ Fou~we will attempt to demonst~ate in detail how the externally

projected attitude is implicated in language learning andteaching.

2.2.3 Language Lea~ne~s' Communication Needs

The question

aspect of aof the language needs

language survey that

of a community is one

very easily becan

overlooked, especially if the language su~veyed has a long

history of standa~dization and is not an official language

o~ one of the official languages of a country. The possible

reasons for this are not difficult to imagine. Language

surveys are usually carried out as a response to some

language-related problems at administrative levels with a

view to gathe~ing info~mation that may lead to the devising

of workable language policies. This information may relate

to such issues as the number of speakers of that language,the numbe~ of people with speaking, w~iting and reading

their geographical distribution, itsproficiency in it,

dialects (usually regional), the numbe~ of the speakers of


90

each dialect, and attitudes towards the language. Findings

of these surveys may result in the implementation of certain

policies such as which language to standardize (where there

has been none standardized) and therefore, which one to

teach in schools and in which areas. Surveys of this nature

ace typical of a situation where language education is still

in its infancy or where there has been a disruption in the

linguistic status quo. All these surveys are invariably and

understandably characterized by a tendency on the part of

the administrators to assume authority in identifying and

pronouncing the language needs of the community with little

or no regard for the actual needs and ways of meeting themas perceived by the communities themselves. I say"understandably" because there has to be somewhere to start

- even though the Leninist language policies have shown that

there is an alternative to this tendency (Edwards 1985:180).

In the case of an already

one that alreadystandardized language or, to be

has a dialect that has beenexact,

standardized, language surveys are usually undertaken to

inform the administrators on such issues as attitude,

preference in use, preferences in medium of instruction in

schools or to reassess the geographical distribution in

order to readjust the areas in which the language is taught

or in order to draw up and/or update language atlases.

Examples of these, to mention just a few, are: T.


91

Hauptfleiscn's =L~a~n~g4~ua~g~e~__~L~o~y~a~1~~ty__~i~n~-=S~o~u~t~h~~A~f~~~~l'=c~a(Fou~volumes), G. Schu~ing's A Multilingual Society (English and

Af~ikadns amongst Blacks in RSA) and its Af~ikaans ve~sion

by Schu~in9 and Yzel 'n Onde~soek nd die taalsituasie in die

Suid-Af~ikaanse Swa~t gemeenskap, all HSRC's p~ojects, and

Af~ikadns Language Atlas at the Unive~sity of P~etoria.

K.P. P~insloo (1978) gives a list of all institutions that

a~e involved in ~esea~ch in the field of language.

The unfo~tunate aspect of su~veys of a language o~ languages

that al~eady have d stdnda~dized va~iety, as far as the

needs of the second language lea~ne~ are conce~ned, is that

tney seem to dssume that pcoficiency in the standard va~iety

is the only way of meeting these needs. Thus the focustends to be on proficiency in the standa~d as well as onattitudes towa~ds it. W~iting about language ~esea~ch

prog~ammes of the Sociolinguistic Division of the HSRC,P~insloo says:

Erro~ analyses a~e being unde~taken to establishwhat standard types of e~~o~ a~e made when usingan official language, so that these er~o~s may betaken into account in language instruction.

1978: 54

It is t~ue that p~oficiency in the standard va~iety can

lessen the burden of the second language learner to a ve~y

great extent. Howeve~, it is my contention here, that giventhe idealistic nature of the standa~d va~iety, the


92

variability of a language and the diversity of the

communication needs of second language learners, any

language survey that is concerned with second language

education but confines itself to the standard and does not

consider the other varieties, is not likely to yield any

findings that can help solve the problem of meeting the

communication needs of second language learners.

The relevance of the notion of learners' communication needs

in a language survey

identification of speech

lies in the

communities

fact that the

and, therefore,

varieties within the target language and the measuring of

the attitudes of its first language speakers towards the

speech of its second language speakers, can go a very long

way in helping to identify or predict the needs of second

language speakers, in making them aware of these, if they

by theare not, or to respond to them when. expressed

learners themselves. This can be achieved by structuring or

adjusting a syllabus or lessons accordingly. On the other

hand, there is no possibility of this if only the standard

variety is the focal point of the survey, since such a

survey presupposes a homogeneous language community. The

tragedy of this, of course, is the possible f~ustration of

tne learner who may

time demanded by and

does very little to

discover that, after all the learning

devoted to the standard variety, it

help him meet the demands of his own

day-to-day real life communication situation. This is true


93

of second language learners of Xhosa in South Africa, for

example, who have gone out after finishing at school or

university to fields such as civil service, health and

welfare, industry, etc., only to discover that what they

learnt is not equal to the task of enabling them to meet

their communication needs. Malcolm X, in a differentcontext though, gives a classic example of a person

thoroughly schooled in the use of the standard variety of

American English but who could not make head nor tail of

what a hustler meant when he said:

"Hey, baby! I dig you holding this all-originalsscene at the track •.. I'm going to lay a vineunder the Jew's balls for a dime - got to give youa play - Got the shots out here trying to scuffleup on some bread •.. Well, my man, I'll get on,got to peck a little and cop me some z's ..•"

(This can be translated as: Hullo mate! I understand you

are having a Black-only bazaar at the hall .•. I shall pawn

my suit for ten dollars because I must patronise your bazaar

although I am struggling to make ends meet. W~ll my man, I

must go now, I want to go and eat a little and then sleep

for a while.)

Perhaps in the case of Black languages in South Africa, the

woek of G. Schuring on the varieties of Sotho in Pretoria

will lead to more similar surveys in other Black languages

and these may eventually sensitize second language educators

and learners and even administrators to the importance of


94

celating these to the communication needs of second language

leacnees and then eevise the syllabi. The geowing numbee of

English ~oems weitten in townshi~ English may lead to the

a~~eaeance of similac liteeatuce in the veenaculacs with

similae possible effect.

In the last cha~tec we shall attempt to show how John

Munby's 1978 suggestions foe identifying and tcying to meet

the leacnees' communication needs can be hel~ful in the

teaching of Xhosa as a second language.

2.2.4 Impoctance foe Language Education

The question that is addcessed in this section is the extent

to which the sociolinguistic sucvey of a language can

benefit language education with special eefecence to second

language education. Thecefoce, in ocdec to avoid the cisk

of genecalization, it may be necessaey to staet byex~laining

what is meant by language education in the context of this

chaptee. I have chosen to do this by ~cesenting a

descending hiecacchy of the ~acties involved in language

education. At the highest level of this hiecacchy ace the

language ~olicy-makecs, followed by the language syllabus

designee, then the language teachec tcainee, the language

teachec, and, finally, the l~nguage leacnec. All these

~aeties ace active pacticipants in an activity taking ~lace

within a given community. Thecefoce, although the othec


95

members of the community may not be actively involved in the

activity and although they may, therefore, not have a place

in this hierarchy, any language education discussion that

excludes them can hardly be complete. It is with this in

mind that I include the members of the community (parents)

among those who not only can benefit from sociolinguistic

surveys but also contribute towards making the task of

language education and learner less burdensome.

2."2.4.1 The Policy-Makers

In the preceding paragraphs it has already become clear how

the policy-makers can benefit from sociolinguistic surveys.

Therefore I shall not repeat it here. Perhaps what can be

added here is that these surveys can help them make language

policies that are conducive to the promotion of positive

language attitudes and that allow for a certain degree of

flexibility giving the language syllabus designer room to

respond to the practical needs of the learner. In otherwords, sociolinguistic surveys can enable the language

policy maker to strike a balance between his responsibility

as the custodian of the standard variety and the need to

avoid enslaving the language syllabus designers and

practitioners to it, thereby saving them from linguisticidealism. In any case it seems reasonable to avoid any

lengthy discussion of the policy makers in a study that is

about language teaching and learning, although the language


96

pollcy-makers have to be responsive to any feed-back coming

from those at the lower levels of the hierarchy. Moreove~,

it is only th~ough information from language survey findings

that language policy-makers are better able to make the

society aware of the importance of teaching and learning thesecond language. Through lack of information about alanguage it is possible that people may resist being taught

that language, arguing that it is not necessary for them.As Stewart says:

Where reactions of this type have caught languageplanners unawares, it has not necessarily beenbecause they were totally unpredictable, butrather because not enough information was soughtin advance about the ways in which languages mayinteract with other aspects of society.

1972: 532

2.2.4.2 The Language Syllabus Designer

The unfortunate fate of the teaching of any second language

is that it is inva~iably modelled on its teaching as a firstlanguage. For instance, the teaching of Xhosa to non-mother- tongue speakers, as the various syllabi show, had to

be modelled on its teaching to mother-tongue speakers. The

same is true of the teaching of Af~ikaans and English tonon-mother-tongue speakers. Any differences that there may

be are usually those of content rather than those of

teaching methodology. I say this is unfortunate, inevitable

though it .may be, because it is how conflict between means


97

and ends in second language teaching is c~eated. This would

not be so if the teaching of a language to mothe~-tongue

speake~s we~e not so conce~ned with st~uctu~al analysis of

the standa~d va~iety, as has always been the case, and still

is with Af~ican languages especially.

Although second-language

than sociolinguistics,

teaching has

the advent

a longe~ t~adition

of the latte~ has

compelled language p~actitione~s to ~eview the means by

which the ends of second language teaching can be achieved.

The main aim of second language teaching has always been the

acquisition of communicative competence with the objective

being the unde~standing of its speake~s and thei~ cultu~e.

Thus, the ideal of communicative competence itself is ha~dly

new as such. What is new, howeve~, is the emphasis on the

need to make speech, ~athe~ than st~ucture, the target in

second language teaching and lea~ning. This has ~esulted in

a vast amount of empirical ~esea~ch on speech behaviou~

patte~ns. Resea~ch findings have called fo~ the ~evision of

the methodology and content of second-language teaching

with a view to tying it up with the new insights. The

libe~alization and democ~atization of society have also

~esulted in

communities

a change in the communication needs of

the~eby necessitating a faste~ application of

these new insights.


98

This is where the language syllabus designer comes in and

this lS where sociolinguistic surveys can prove useful to

nim. The language designer occupies a very important

position in the hierarchy of language education as he plays

the role of the middleman between the policy maker

(government department) and the language practitioners. As

a member of either a Language Committee (ad hoc or long

standing) or a Language Institute which the policy-maker may

commission to design a syllabus, he is an applied

linguistics specialist who has to mediate between the

theoretical linguist and the teacher whose task is a

practical one (8ell 1981: 13). Armed with the information

from the findings of the sociolinguistic survey of a

language on the areas discussed in the preceding paragraphs,

especially needs and varieties, the language syllabus

designer will be able not only to draw up a flexible

syllabus to suit the varying demands of the learners from

area to area and from level to level, but also to specify in

the syllabus itself the rationale behind such a syllabus.

This will allow the teacher to adjust and adapt nis teaching

accordingly, using the syllabus as a framework within which

such adjustments and adaptations are made. Such a flexible

syllabus will subsequently allow for flexibility in theevaluation procedures. It would be futile to specify rigidevaluation procedures if the teaching process has not beenrigid.


99

On the othee hand a syllabus designee who sees language

meeely as a system of foems oe of knowledge and does not

take its functional value into account may make the task of

the teachee a buedensome one, as the teachec may find his

hands full with motivating leacnecs who do not see any link

between what they ace leaening and theic communication

needs. The escape coute feom this is via the collection of

enough infoemation about a language befoee its syllabus isdeslgned.

2.2.4.3 The Teachee Teainee

Both the teachec teainee and the teachee ace essentially

involved in the same activity. They both have the skills in

the taeget language and theie level of peoficiency in it is

the same. Howevee, the diffeeence between them is that the

tedchee teainee teaches the aleeady skilled how to impactthese skills. It is foe this eeason that I have chosen totceat them sepaeately.

It has been a tcadition that the teachee teainec and the

teachee have been people who wece mothee-tongue speakecs of

the taeget language. Although this is no longee the case,

noc has it always been possible, it is still ideal that they

should be people with mothee-tongue peoficiency even

though this is not the case in places wheee theee is a

shoctage of suitably qualified teachecs eesulting feom a


100

vaciety of factocs. In both cases the cesuit has been that

they attached the same value to the notion of "coccect"

language and adopted the same attitudes towacds what they

cegarded as "w r o nq " , "bad" , "cacel.ess", "sloppy",

"slovenly", "vulgac" oc even "gibbecish" (Edwacds and Giles

1984: 125).

Thece are two categocies of second language leacnecs that

the teachec has to contend with. Thece is the second-

language leacner

pcevious knowledge

argued that this is

who may come to the language class with no

of the language. It may sometimes be

pcoblem

an easy leacnec to teach as he may not

having to unleacn the "incoccect"have the of

language acquiced pceviously.

has only the teachec to use

that all membecs of his class

pcovided that this leacner

as his model and pcovided too

ace like him, this may be

tcue. Then it may be acgued that when this leacnec leaves

school he is able to speak the "coccect" language. Howevec,

this is unlikely to happen, except pechaps in situations

whece the pcessuce on the leacnec to acquice pcoficiency is

vecy gceat - as is

Afcikaans by Blacks

exceptionally highly

the case with the study of English and

in south Afcica - or in the case of an

motivated leacnec, because immecsion

into the community that speaks the language is the best

means of acquicing mothec-tongue pcoficiency. Even if this

wece possible this leacner would discover, aftec leaving

school, that this "cocrect" language is not of much help to


lal

him since there are very few situations in which he can use

it. He may discover, to his disappointment, that successful

interaction involves having to learn new skills, because,

although he may be understood by his listeners, he may find

it difficult to understand them. Of course h~s "correct"

language foundation will be helpful to a certain extent, but

the point is that the school will have failed him.

The second category of second language learner is the one

who comes to school having acquired a certain degree of

competence in the language, whether it be passive or active.

Traditionally, from the teacher's point of view, this is a

more problematic learner since he is competent in a variety

which may conflict with the one that is the target at

school. What is significant here is that this competence

has been acquired through interaction with the members of

one or more speech communities within the language community

into which the first category learner has to move during or

after his school career to put into use or improve what he

has learnt at school. Yet, instead of taking advantage of

the presence of this semi-competent learner by encouraging

him to share his skills with the first category learner and

by encouraging the latter to take advantage of his presence,

the teacher requires them to learn the prescribed abstract

variety. The irony of this is that the teacher encourages

the learners to "mix with and talk to" as many speakers of

the language as possible and as frequently as possible even


102

though he has shown by trying to change what is already

known that what they will bring to his school from such

interaction will not be acceptable.

Unless tRe teacher trainer is aware of the sociolinguistic

realities of the target language, he may continue to design

language teacher training programmes which may not be

suitable for enabling the teacher trainee to be prepared to

teach the language in a manner that will tie up with the

needs of his future pupils because its content does not take

account of currently used varieties and currently held

attitudes. Unless the teacher trainer is aware of these

realities, he is, in essence, himself not suitably qualified

to train second language teachers.

The inevitable result is that he will produce low calibre

teachers because they are not sensitized to the

sociolinguistic realities of the languages they have been

trained to teach. This eventually may lead to a number of

other adverse results. Standards may drop, the number of

takers of the language may either drop or remain static;

teachers may leave the profession for less arduous and more

fulfilling jobs. What is even worse is that the national

objectives of teaching the second language may never be

achieved, with the result that the whole idea of second

language teaching may become an exercise in futility.


103

2.2.4.4 The Teacher and the Pupil

Teaching is an elitist activity taking place within an

elitist institution, the school. Thus teachers are members

of the elitist sections of the communities in which they

work and, as such, share in almost all the elitist

stereotypes.

Teachers' attitudes have typically been built uponan assumed correctness of..certain speech styles,usually those of the middle class. t~is has ledlogically to attempts to teach children "proper"linguistic habits, and to the assumption thattheir natural varieties may not always becompletely adequate.

Edwards and Giles 1984: 125

Depending on their training backgrounds, the syllabi which

provide the framework of their activity, as well as on their

communities' language values, teachers mayor may not find

themselves equal to the task of second language teaching.

However, as Edwards and Giles observe, teachers are more

than likely to be very easily initiated into the

conservative norms of the school "••• however they may feel

before entering their school career •.. " (Ibid.). In a

second language situation pervaded by this kind of teacher

attitude the disadvantages for the pupil are numerous.


104

A second-language learner is a disadvantaged learner

regardless of which of the categories mentioned above he may

belong to. Sociolinguistically, according to J.R. Edwards:

Disadvantaged children are those whose homebackground and early socialization are such as tomake the transition from home to school difficult.

1979: 22

Although many sociolinguists have treated the notion of

language disadvantage within the context of social class,

this cannot apply to South Africa - at least not in the

context of teaching. Here languagesecond language

disadvantage has to do with language or race group identity

and language Darwinism· which manifests itself in the

emergence and growth of non-standard varietias. A second-

language teacher who does not take cognizance of this may

unfairly hinder a child's progress at school. The tendency

of such a teacher is to treat his subject in the same manner

as the other subjects offered at his school. Yet the

learning of these other subjects does not necessarily remove

the child from his own cultural milieu.

Hence, one could reasonably conclude that mostschool learning involves the acquisition ofknowledge or habits which are already part of themake-up of the culture with which the studentidentifies. Such is not the case with secóndlanguages, however.

R.C. Gardner 1979: 193


105

All the things the child has to learn during his second-

language class do not just involve acquiring new information

on such issues as grammar, vocabulary, tone etc. They

involve the acquisition of "symbolic elements of a different

ethnolinguistic community". It is for this reason that

Gardner suggests that second-language teaching should be

viewed as a "central pyschological phenomenon" rather than a

merely educational one. Unless the teacher adopts this

approach, he is not sensitive to such questions as to what

extent

•.• do affective factors such as social prestige,assumed superiority or, contrarywise, assumedinferiority,or enforcement of a hated language bya hated nation affect language learning in achild.

(Gardner 1979: 194).

Gardner quotes Lambert (1936: 114) as saying that this

approach, i.e. treatment of second language learning as a

central psychological phenomenon:

in brief, holds that an individualsuccessfully acquiring a second language graduallyadopts various aspects of behaviour whichcharacterize members of another linguistic-cultural group.

Ibid.

My thesis here is that the second language teacher can adopt

this approach only if there has been a sociolinguistic

survey of the target language, from the findings of which he


106

can draw all the infocmation about the culture of its

speakers, their language attitudes, the attitudes of the

community from which the pupils come towards the target

language and therefore the possible attitudes of the pupils

as well as their ethnocentricity, the varieties and the

speech communities. With this information he will be better

equipped to handle the tasks of sensitizing his pupils to

their possible future communication needs and therefore

guiding them accordingly, motivating them, reshaping their

attitudes should they be negative and encouraging them

should he find them positive. Since sociolinguistic surveys

reveal so much about the culture of the speakers of a

language, a teacher who draws on their findings for his

teaching strategies will easily see the importance of

weaving some cultural aspects of speech behaviour into his

lessons. Sociolinguistic survey findings inform the teacher

also about the possible attitudes of the first language

speakers towards the speech of the second language speakers

of the target language. with this information the teacher

is better able to programme his second language teaching in

such a way that his pupils can not only predict the

possible reactions of the first language speakers to their

speech, but also cope with such reactions if they are

negative, or to take full advantage of them if they are

positive. Another possible contribution of sociolinguistic

surveys to second language teaching is that their findings

can form the basis of the teacher's own mini-sociolinguistic


107

survey among his pupils and of the community in which the

school is situated. This would enable him to have some

insight into the possible causes of what he would otherwise

regard as "incorrect" use of the language and to enlighten

the pupils on the appropriate contexts in which such

"incorrect" forms can be used, rather than penalise them.

All this is true also for such education officers as school

inspectors and subject advisors or co-ordinators.

The frustration suffered by a second language learner who

finds himself thrown into a language situation characterized

'by hypercorrection, is succinctly summarised by Ryan, Giles

and Sebastian when they quote from Rodriguez' essay on his

experiences as a Spanish-Mexican pupil attending an American

school where he had to learn English. Rodriguez, a college

school teacher, as Giles et al. put it:

..• writes regretfully and self-questioningly ofabandoning his Spanish-Mexican heritage in orderto succeed at school and in the broader Americansociety represented by the school.

He writes:

The change came gradually but early. When I wasbeginning grade school, I noted to myself the factthat the classroom environment was so different inits styles and assumptions from my own familyenvironment that survival would essentially entaila choice, between both worlds. When I became astudent, I was literally 'remade': neither I normy teachers considered anything I had known beforeas relevant. I had to forget most of what myculture had provided, because to remember it was adisadvantage. The past and its cultural values


108

became detachable, like a piece of clothing grownheavy on a warm day and finally put away

1982: 1

A vast number of sociolinguistic researchers into second-

language teaching and learning have confirmed the prejudices

to which a second language learner may be subjected by

teachers who are enslaved by the tradition of "correct"

language and who, consequently, may have negative attitudes

towards wnat they regard as deviant speech norms. In these

cases teachers are not necessarily aware that their beliefs

about language use are prejudicial to the pupils. Many of

these researchers have focussed mainly on the teachers'

stereotypes and the effects thereof on linguistically

disadvantaged pupils. One hardly ever comes across a survey

carried out within a situation where both the teachers and

the pupils are linguistically disadvantaged. This ispresumably because such a situation can only be found where

second language teaching activity takes place under

extremely peculiar socio-political conditions. The findings

of such a survey would be interesting.

2.2.4.5 The Parents

Any teaching takes place within a conceptual triangle

consisting of the teacher, the pupil and the parent,

although the parents are not directly involved in the actual

teacning and learning mechanisms. Parents represent the


109

wider membership of the community from which the teachers

and the 9Upils come and, as such, they form the largest part

of the socia-political arena in which the teaching and

learning activities take place. Since, as has been statedearlier, second-language teaching is social anda

psychological phenomenon, discussion of language teaching

and learning in a sociolinguistic context has, of necessity,

to include the parents. While the role of parents is taken

for granted in the education of their children, it is

equally easy to assume they have very little or no role at

all to play in their childrens' actual process of learning.

On the contrary, the importance of parents' roles in their

children's learning of a second language is clearly shown in

Ryan and Giles' second the quotation frompart ofRodriguez's essay:

I remember when, 20 years ago, two grammar schoolnuns visited my childhood home. They had come tosuggest ••• that we make a greater effort to speakas much English around the house as possible. Thenuns realized that my brothers and I led solitarylives largely because we were the only Spanish-speaking students. My mother and father compliedas best they could. Heroically, they gave upspeaking to us in Spanish - the language thatformed so much of the family's sense of intimacyin an alien world - and began to speak a brokenEnglish. Instead of Spanish sounds, I beganhearing sounds that were new, harder, lessfriendly The bonds their voices once secutedwere loosened by the new tongue.

Ibid.


110

Although the notion of spill-over benefits is always

mentioned with reference to leacners whose homes or families

have the potential to offer a climate that can be suppoctive

to the learning process, it is also possible to mention it

in the context of the learners' wider social environment and

this is probably more so in the case of language learning.

The extent to which the parents can be supportive to the

children's learning efforts depends largely on the views

they hold about language and their level of awareness of the

sociolinguistic realities pertaining to I.t , In the case of

the second language learnt by their children, even more

important is the extent of their own proficiency in it and

their attitudes towards that language and its speakers.

As we have seen earlier, it is very difficult to gain

conclusive evidence about a community's attitudes towards

any given language. These can, however, become manifest in

a variety of discecnible ways. Generally parents ace known

to be very conservative about language usage in relation to

their children. With regard to the appropriate use of

language, parents and children are always at loggerheads.

Parents considec the use of "correct" language an important

step in tne upward social mobility ladder and therefore tend

to have similar expectations to the school authorities. On

the otner hand, the children tend to see parents as allies

of an army of linguistic prescriptivists whose main aim is

to take away their fceedom to speak as they please. This is


III

the case not only with the first language but also with the

second in the case of parents who are ~roficient in both

languages.

How then can sociolinguistic surveys mediate in this

situation? In the case of second languages, the findings of

sociolinguistic surveys can sensitize the parents to the

functional value of the languages. In this way they can

change their attitudes if they are negative. They may even

s~e the s~eakers of these languages in a different

perspective and understand them better. Parents who are

indifferent to a language, its speakers and their culture,

cannot hope to be able to give support to the efforts of

educational authorities and teachers to motivate unmotivated

children. Neither can they help the children withstand the

traumatic experience of the culture shock that goes with

learning a second language.

Information from these surveys would also give the parents

some insight into their linguistic environment which can

very easily be taken for granted. Once this happens they

are able to predict the future language needs of their

cnildren. The children can then study the second language

within a supportive rather than an ignorant and indifferent

community. This would lessen the burden of the teacher.

Speaking at a language-teaching conference at the University

of Cape Town in 1986, Professor Mawasha, co-author of a


112

numbee of school books on the teaching of English, now

peofessoe of Language Teaching Methods at the Univeesity of

the Noetn, told of how he once spent sleepless nights

peepaeing a speech in English on behalf of the leavees at

his foernee peimary school although his audience was going to

be Black. He did all this to please his mothee who was so

inteeested in his progress in English that she had always

expeessed a desiee to heae him speak the language. What I

am teying to show in mentioning this here is tnat it takes a

paeent with a positive attitude towards a language to be

able to give encoueagement and support to a child in

learning the language. Such an attitude does not requiee

any knowledge of the language, even though, in terms of the

help a paeent can give the child, this knowledge can be an

added incentive to the child. All that is necessaey is

awaeeness of its usefulness and this awareness is more

possible against the background of infoemation feom

sociolinguistic surveys.

This is especially the case with African languages in South

Afeica if their peesent status in celation to English and

Afrikaans is consideeed, and also if theie possible future

status in post-apartheid South Africa is taken into account.


CHAPTER 3

SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter I shall give a brief history of the teaching

of Xhosa to non-mother tongue speakers in South Africa from

the 1920s to the presen~ The aim of this is two-fold.

First, it is to show that the teaching of Xhosa, both as a

first and second language, has always been very heavily

influenced by language-teaching models imported first from

Europe and then America. These models themselves were a

reflection of the interests of their times in linguistic

studies. Second, it is to show that (until recently) the

history of the teaching of Xhosa to non-mother tongue

speakers has been marked to a great extent by a constant

conflict between the ends and the means. This will form the

background to a question to be raised later on as to whether

or not the successive changes in the syllabi have succeeded

in eliminating this conflict.

~n this historical background I have included also the

universities, although the main focus in this work is on the

teaching of Xhosa at school - both junior and senior. In a

work that is about the teaching of Xhosa as a third language

the justification of the inclusion of universities may be

113


114

questionable, considering that all evidence points to the

fact that the teaching of African languages at the

universities has academic interest as the major motivation

for its introduction and development. This academic

interest was anchored on two main traditions:

One which has been primarily concerned withlanguage learning and description ••• and another(tradition) which was primarily concerned withcomparisons of languages, the setting up ofclassifications and the postulations of a so-called Proto-Bantu language.

G. Poulos 1986 4

There are, however, some considerations that have made the

inclusion of the universities inevitable. The teaching of

Xhosa to non-mother-tongue speakers started at the

universities, and it is the universities that supply the

schools with teachers. Thus the success of the teaching of

any newly introduced subject at school level depends largely

on the extent to which universities are ready to supply the

necessary manpower (personnel). It is for this reason,

therefore, that in looking at the extralinguistically based

problems in third-language teaching and learning, the role

of the centres of tertiary education can never escape

scrutiny •. The universities, in all disciplines, (those that

are offered in schools, that is) are usually the trend-

setters. This results in co-ordination of areas of coverage

in such a way that the new teachers find their university

experience a reinforcement of their school experience and


115

also one that prepares them for being able to plough back

into the community, in a variety of ways including

teaching - what they gained at university~ But for this,

universities would be of no relevance to the communities.

Briefly then, the rationale for the inclusion of

universities is mainly to consider whether or not in the

case of the teaching of Xhosa as a second language there has

been a proper co-ordination between university studies and

the needs of the schools on the one hand, and society as a

whole on the other~

With regard to the his~ory of the teaching of Xhosa to non-

mother-tongue learners, there are some coincidences which

are worth mentioning at this point. The one is that, until- .

recently, with the introduction of Xhosa at the University

of the Western Cape at Bellville and at a few schools under

the Department of Education and Culture of the House of

Representatives, being a non-mather-tongue learner of Xhosa

has always meant being Whi te] The other is that, as a

result of this, and also as a result of factors to be found

in the history of South Africa, being a non-mather-tongue

learner of Xhosa has, for a long time - and still does to a

great extent today - coincided with belonging to a section

of the population that has more political, military,

educational, economic and technological power than the

Xhosa. The significance of this coincidence lies not only


116

in its implication for the status of Xhosa in relation to

Afrikaans and English, but also in its implication for

attitudes towards it both at governmental level and learner

level.

3.2 Xhosa at South African universities

Excepting the hope of being useful, there isnothing in South Africa to stimulate philologicalinquiry. The languages of the Aboriginal tribesoffer no literary treasures for the amusement ofthe student.

W.B. Boyce 1838 iv

The study of African languages in South Africa has come a

long way since Boyce wrote this in the introduction to his A

Grammar of the Kaffir Language in 1838, the first book of

Xhosa grammar. However, what is of significance now in what

Boyce said is his perception of the usefulness of

philological inquiry, which becomes apparent later in this

introduction when he goes on to say:

The importance of the Kaffir and Sechuanalanguages, as opening to us the means ofcommunication with all the tribes of Africa southof the Equator, renders every attempt tofacilitate their acquisition interesting 'to themerchants and traders of the Cape colony. As amedium of communication of Divine truth, theSechuana, from the extensive range of itsinfluence, has peculiar claims on the attention ofthe British and Foreign Bible Society.

op cit. x


117

Thus, for Boyce, communicative proficiency in the African

languages was useful insofar as it would facilitate trade

and the spreading of Christianit~ The other advantage of

such proficiency as far as he was concerned would be that it

would enable the missionaries to counteract the spread of

Islam, which was then "rapidly spreading from the commercial

depots on the coast into the interior" under the patronage

of the Imam of Muscat in "the vast extent of country between

Delagoa-Bay and the Red Sea." (p xi)

The sentiments expressed by Boyce were, no doubt, consistent

with the general attitude of the missionaries and traders of

his time towards the acquisition of communication skills in

an African language. [n the absence of evidence to the

contrary, it is a fair assumption to say that the feeling of

the time was that there was no great need, if any at all,

for one to learn an African language, unless one was a\

trader or missionary.c--- ,..-------..=-ghe unfortunate aspect of this kind

of attitude was that the usefulness of communication skills

in an African language would last for only as long as the

Africans themselves were not able to communicate in the

language of the trader or missionary. This view was later

confirmed by a Bishop whom the Rev. W.A. Norton met in South

Africa in 1903 and who expressed the view that:


118

••• it is hardly worth while toNative tongues very deeply,doomed to die out soon throughEnglish1

fash oneself aboutbecause they areadoption by all of

Norton 1921 1

The vast body of works on the grammar of African languages

during the period between the time when Boyce wrote the

above, and the opening of the School of African Life and

Languages at the University of Cape Town in Y~? bears

witness to the fact that awareness about the usefulness of

and interest in African languages did not die outo

However, the efforts that preceded the opening of the School

reveal two interesting aspects of the history of the

teaching of African languages to non-mother tongue-speakers.

First there was a shift in the perception of their

usefulness from that propagated by Boyce. Second, the need

for the study of African languages was now embedded in the

political rut that came to be known as the Native question

in the corridors of administration departments. There is,

however, no evidence that those in the higher echelons of

administration were aware of it, for neither in the terms of

reference nor in the report of the Milner Native Affairs

Commission of 1903-05 was any reference to language ever

made, even though this Commission:


119

••. had shown South Afeica and the eest of thecivilised woeld something of all that they did notknow of the native life and mind.

Walkee 1929 106

The Commission itself was set up specifically:

•.• to gathee accueate infoemation on ceetainaffaies eelating to the Native administeation andto of fee eecommendations to the seveealgoveenments conceened, with the object of aeeivingat a common undeestanding on questions of Nativepolicy.

Repoet Volume I 1905 1

It was left to the academics to discovee the links between

this objective and the study of Afeican languages.

Addeessing a meeting of the Beitish Association foe the

Advancement of Science held in South Afeica in 1905,

Peofessoe A.C. Haddon eemaeked that the woek of the Native

Affaies Commission of 1903-5, admieable though it no doubt

was, was but a small pact of what had to be undectaken to

get ~an accueate account of the Natives of South Afeica~ and

peeseeve it foe scientific use. He suggested that if the

Goveenment was not able to undeetake that:

.••adequate assistance should besocieties oe individuals who may betake the mattee in hand.

given topeepaeed to

Haddon 1906 524


120

He went on to say:

I am not competent to speak concerninglinguistics, but ••• gather that a very great dealyet remains to be done, at all events inphonetics, grammar and comparative philology.

In spite of this and the subsequent efforts by the Royal

Anthropological Institute, by interested persons in South

Africa, as well as by certain of the universities of South

Africa, no action was taken for a decade and a half after

Haddon said this. Part of this inaction was related to the

availability of funds to finance African Languages Chairs,

and part to the fact that the Government failed to see anyurgency in the opening of such departments at theuniversities, and therefore in the study of Africanlanguages.

Those individuals who devoted their time and energy to press

for the establishment of "Native Languages" Departments at

universities were seeing their usefulness from a different

angle from that which Boyce mentioned above. What was,however, common between their pleas and those of Boyce was

that in their pleas there was no suggestion that theusefulness of African languages extended beyond thos~

officers of the Government that were involved in "Native

én a memorandum drawn up by the Senate of

the South African College (the present University of Cape

Administration".

Town) for the College Council in 1917 to motivate the


121

establishment of a Chair of Bantu Languages, it was stated,

among other things, that:

••• for magistrates and officials employed amongNatives a knowledge of the Native language ishighly desirable, if not absolutely necessary.

S.A.C. Senate Memorandum 16 May 1917

This view was echoed in the inaugural address of Professor

W.A. Norton, the first professor of Bantu Philology at

University of Cape Town, when he said:

••• we in South Africa have still to learn morefully that a knowledge of the mentality of thepeople ruled is necessary in rulers.

1921 11

Quoting Dale and Smith, he goes on:

Attention has been called repeatedly at meetingsof societies to the fact that unless something isspeedily done in the matter of systematic study ofSouth African languages the opportunities of studymay be permanently lost owing to the changes anddecay which are rapidly overtaking Nativelanguages.

The importance of the study of African languages as an

academic exercise was, however, never overtaken by its

functional importance in administration, even though, it

would appear, the latter was seen to be a potentially more

effective strategy in persuading the government to respond


122

positively to their pleas. In addition to being of

practical benefit the study of African languages would add,

it was argued, a new dimension to the wider interest of

human knowledge in general.

So desperate were the universities becoming that the

University of Cape Town senate resolved in July 1919 to

appoint a lecturer from January 1920 and pay him from its

own funds if the government did not sanction the resolution

which the Council had approved This was to be on

condition that enough funds were available from the

university's own resources. Even the students, through

their S.R.C., expressed their wish to do a course in African

languages. In the same year the Royal Anthropological

Institute again suggested to the government that an

anthropological bureau be established and the Universities

of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria and Cape Town renewed their

requests for the establishment of "departments dealing with

Native life or languages" (Levy 1971 : 3). The Government

was impressed at last and referred the whole matter of the

requests of universities and colleges to a special

commission, the Coleman Departmental Committee. It is to

this special commission that the teaching and learning of

Xhosa at the White universities owes its origin.

The Committee recommended that the Government should:


123

••. at once take steps to establish a school ofsuch strength as will show a real and adequateinterest on the part of South Africans in problemswhose solution is necessary for the future safedevelopment of a country in which white and blackare to live side by side.

Committee Report 1920 92

The Committee recommended further that for the initial

period of five years such a school should be concentrated in

only one of the centres that had applied and that at the end

of this period the Government should be free to transfer one

or more of the posts to another centre, and establish a

second school (Report 93). The University of Cape Town

was recommended as the centre to be invited to present a

scheme for the establishment of the school along the general

lines recommended by the Committee.

These were to be the main aims of the work of the school as

envisaged by the Committee:

The first and most important work of such a schoolwill be investigation of ethnology, history, folk-lore, religion, psychology and habits of the .Banturace •••

The second aim should be the study of the manylanguages and dialects of the race, with theirrelations to one another and those of other partsof the Continent. A third and very practicalobjective must be instruction in native life andlanguage for those intending to work for or amongnatives.

Committee Report 1920 ~ 22


124

On eeceiving the Committee's eepoet the Univeesity of Cape

Town eequested the Boaed of the Faculty of Acts to woek out

the scheme eequested theeein. With eegaed to the staff of

the language-teaching section of the school, which they

eecommended be called the School of Afeican Life and

Languages, the boa cd eecommended:

One peofessoe of Bantu philology with theeeeeadees oe lectueees in Afeican languages (viz.foe the Xhosa and Zulu geoup, foe the Sotho-Tswanageoup, and for Swahili and kindred dialects); •••

Roberts 1968 652

Also, as a result of this Committee's report, and the- 3 000

per annum subsidy recommended therein, the university was

able to appoint the first professor of Bantu Philology even

though "Bantu will not be regarded as a qualifying B.A.

course this year " (Robertson 1968 : 650). This had to

wait until 1921.

Thus, after a veey long struggle to convince the Government, )tPthe stage was now set foe the teaching of Xhosa to non-

mother-tongue learners. Twenty years later, in 1941, at

Rhodes University the first course in Xhosa was offered .

.•• a fact tinged with some ieony when we rememberthat it was heee in the Eastern Cape thatfiest large-scale contact between Bantu-speakingpeople and white settlers took place!

Fivaz 1974 3


125

Ironically, although Stellenbosch University started

teaching African languages in 1926, Xhosa was not one of the

languages offered. Instead Zulu and South Sotho were

offered. It was only in 1964 that Zulu was replaced with~

Xhosa. Unlike the older universities, the Universities of

Port Elizabeth and the Western Cape did not take long after

they had been established before they started teaching

Xhosa.

A significant aspect of the history of the teaching of Xhosa

to non-mother-tongue learners at university is that the

interest of the universities in African languages came at a

time when Carl Meinhof, a German linguist, was publishing a

series of works in comparative Bantu. As a product of the

era of comparative linguists in Europe, Meinhof was applying

comparative linguistic principles in reconstructing a proto-

parent language of all the Bantu languages. It can

therefore be said that the teaching of African languages at

the South African White universities came at a time when

Bantu languages were beginning to feel the effects of

William Jones's discovery of similarities between Sanskrit

on the one hand, and Latin and Greek on the other, a

discovery which ushered in the era of comparative

linguistics in Europe. This was also a time when interest

in phonetics was very great in Europe.


Thus, these two components, together with some structural

analysis, dominated African language studies at White

universities. trhe teaching of communicative competence was

obviously not considered to be at the same level of

importance as these other components. This explains why the

employment of mother-tongue speakers to handle this

component was not considered very necessary. All that they

were needed for was as "native subject for phonetic purposes

in illustration of dialects being taught". This also

explains why a university could offer any African language

irrespective of its location as long as there was somebody

to teach it. At Rhodes University, for example:

There was a time apparently, when a course on anyBantu language was offered subject only to thefollowing being available:

1. Prospective students

2. A dictionary

3. A New Testament in the language

Fivaz 1974 4

(

Evidence from the history of the teaching of African

languages at the White universities in South Africa seems to

il reveal that it was motivated by two main ~~: the quest

~ for scientific knowledge on the one hand, and control on the

other. There is no evidence to indicate that they were

introduced for any other functional importance.

universities could afford to treat African languages in this

126

The


127

manner, because, unlike in the case of the other languages,they were not under any pressure to produce teachers (fort.hesc hool sI ast her ewe ren 0 sc h0 0 1sat wh ieh Afr icanlanguages were offered. They had also been made to believe

Iby some "duthorities" such as Norton and Boyce, that these

Ilanguages ~ere doomed to extinction.

/

The teaching of Xhosa and other African languages at Whiteuniversities has come a long way since those days. However,the significance of this history for our purposes here isthat in it are the roots of the dilemma in which theuniversities were to find themselves in the years ahead.The tradition grew and entrenched itself. The Africanlanguages, needless to say, did not "die out throughadoption of Eng li sh", as Norton and oth ers had warned i The

dream of endless control gradually disappeared. As it didso, the functional importance of _Afr_Lc"a"n_l.a"n.gu~g~sda~"~d __on

lWhi~=__~?~_i_:_ ies~ :::esul tin g__in ..a J.~stt:9_r_o_w_Ln.g_.Lo.t_et;_~~ 1;: _ 0n "

~~ ~~ea_rn these la~9Uages1 This interestmanifested itself in White parents wantin-g--their-chilai::'ënto

~-_ ..

(be~h t Af-r_Lc_an---l-a-n-g_u_ag~_s__arid in t,-h-e-i-n-t-r-0-clu.c-t.-i-on-o-f·-t-heselanguages at the schools.-_.~----------------------...,,-

In the paragraphs below we look at the historical backgroundof the teaching and learning of Xhosa as a second languagein the White schools. The dilemma in which the universitieswere to find themselves revolved around the question of how


128

they were going to reconcile their tradition of theoretical

analysis of the structure of African languages with the

functional needs of the communities which they served~

Would they be able to supply the schools with suitably

qualified teachers to achieve all the objectives as stated

in the schools' syllabuses? This, however, does not suggest

that the universities were immediately aware of the

expectations of the schools and the communities. On the

contrary, the syllabuses followed at the schools, as we

shall see, initially conflicted 'with the needs of the

learners and the expectations of the communities. Thus,

because of the emphasis on the structure of the language in

these syllabuses, ~e few university graduates who went.out

to teach' African languages did not immediately realize the

limitations of their university trainingl The other reason4why the universities did not immediately become aware of

this dilemma was that initially there was very little or no

consultation between the schools and education departments

on the one hand, and the universities' African languages

departments on the other, about the teaching and learning

of Xhosa in the schools.

3.3 The post-Primary Schools

According to available records the Joint Matriculation Board

already had a syllabus for Xhosa Third Language by 1936.

Although until the late 1960s there were no schools at which


[PO( G ~5::, --:t ti s;Cf Urr{)u fWfS ?-s 0;( 6:00 '1.6fi:K- ®lj~(. '1bg IfIJ L~_A_/'®


129

Xhosa was offered as a second language, there were many

private candidates who wrote Matriculation examinations in

the subject long before it was offered at any school.

(J.M.B. Secretary - personal communication)

It has not been possible to find out when Xhosa was

introduced at the White post-primary schools. The reason

for this is that in some schools Xhosa was first introduced

as an extra-mural subject. When this happened, the schools

did not have to notify the Department as the subject was not

part of the curriculum and was taught outside the school

timetable.

The first known school to offer Xhosa as an examination

subject introduced it in 1(9j? They had their first

Standard Ten examinations in 1&. The story of the

teaching of Xhosa at the White schools has a sad but amusing

beginning. It all started in Paarl, at a school called

Paarl Gymnasium. The story is that one day during the

political uprisings of the early 1960s, the local Blacks

marched to the small Boland town in very large numbers.

This march made the White community aware of the need to

know the language of the people with whom they lived, with

the result that they decided that they wanted their children

to be taught Xhosa. Thus Xhosa was introduced at Paarl

Gymnasium in 1964.~


130

Paarl Gymnasium's example was followed by a number of other

schools in the Western and Eastern Cape. By 1975 already

there were six schools that entered candidates for Xhosa in

the Senior Certificate examination. However, by this time

these schools were experiencing so many problems with the

teaching of Xhosa that the Cape Education Department was

inundated with a constant stream of telephone calls and

letters requesting that the Department should assist them in

overcoming these problems. Unfortunately the Department was

itself not prepared for this, because there was no provision

within the personnel structure for somebody to take .the

responsibility for the planning and supervision of the

teaching of Xhosa.

In response to these requests, the Cape Education Department

requested one C.G. de Jager, an inspector of schools at De

Aar who had university qualifications in Xhosa, to look into

the Xhosa teachers' problems and make recommendations about

possible steps to be taken to alleviate them. Armed with

only the list of the schools at which Xhosa was offered, a

copy of the core syllabus and a rough preliminary copy of

the syllabus that was to be followed from 1977, he toured

the Eastern and Western Cape, visiting the schools. He

discovered more schools which were also offering Xhosa in

Standards Six, Seven and Eight, and about which he was not

told by the Department. He discovered also that there were

schools which had once offered Xhosa, but which gave it up


131

because of the unavailability of teachers. He had talks

with school principals and the teachers of Xhosa. These

talks enabled him to draw up a profile of the problems that

pervaded the teaching of Xhosa to non-mot her-tongue

speakers. He also held talks with some individuals involved

in the teaching of Xhosa at the Universities of Rhodes and

Port Elizabeth to canvass their views.

In October 1976 de Jager presented the Cape Education

Department with his findings and recommendations concerning

steps to be taken to help teachers overcome their problems.

One of the major problems of the teachers of Xhosa in the

Cape schools was that they could not interpret the Joint

Matriculation Board's core syllabus. The other problem was

that there were no grammar textbooks available that were

written for second-language learning of Xhosa. The teachers

themselves were not suitably trained to teach Xhosa as a

second language and they did not have anybody to give them

guidance.

De Jager's most significant recommendation was that the

Department had to establish a Study Committee for Xhosa. He

also submitted names of people he thought would be competent

to serve on such a Committee. These people were officers of

the Education Department and university and school teachers.

This recommendation was well received by the Department and

de Jager was given a departmental mandate to go ahead and


132

constitute the Committee. The Department also nominated him

as the first chairperson of the Xhosa Study Committee. A

conspicuous feature of this Committee was the absence

amongst its members of a mother-tongue speaker of Xhosa.

The Xhosa Study Committee had its first meeting on the 19th

November 1976 at the School Board Office in Port Elizabeth.

According to the notice of this first meeting sent out to

the Committee members:

Die vernaamste taak van die Studiekomitee op dieeerste vergadering is die behandeling van die nuwesillabus en die waarskynlike opstel van 'ninligtingstuk aan die onderwysers.

TRANSLATION

The most important task of the Study Committee attheir first meeting was the handling of the newsyllabus and the possible compilation of aninformation sheet.

At about the same time as the first meeting of the Xhosa

Study Committee the new senior secondary Xhosa syllabus was

completed and gazetted in the Education Gazette. Thus, from

November 1976 through the Xhosa Study Committee, the

Education Department began to be involved in the p~omotion

of the teaching of Xhosa in White secondary schools and in

giving assistance to the teachers. This assistance was in

the form of guidelines sent to the schools through circular

letters. The Xhosa Study Committee worked very closely with


133

the Language Teaching Institute of the Univeesities of

Stellenbosch, Rhodes and Poet Elizabeth to assist teachees.

Talks, eefeeshee coueses and teachee's study geoups weee

aeeanged at which common peoblems weee discussed.

Despite all these effoets, howevee, theee still weee

peoblems which peoved difficult to solve. The peoblem of

the lack of teachees peesisted. Teachees had peoblems with

the liteeatuee component of the syllabus. Both the teachees

and the pupils found the peesceibed books too difficult to

follow, with the eesuIt that teachees teanslated these foe

the pupils and taught the English oe Afeikaans veesion. To

help oveecome this peoblem the Univeesities of Poet

Elizabeth and Rhodes simplified and abeidged some Xhosa

novels and plays. These weee peesceibed by the Education

Depactment.

The content of the syllabus itself conflicted quite maekedly

with the needs of the leaenees. It was mostly conceened

with the steuctuee of the language, that is, the geammae.

Of the 300 macks in the two papees in Standaed Ten, foe

instance, only 50 weee foe oeal peoficiency in the language.

Of these dictation and eeading weee given 10 macks each,

which, left 30 macks foe the actual oeal peoficiency, that

is only 10% of the examination.


134

It was inevitable that the 1976 gcammac-ocientated syllabus

would eithec be cevised oe done away with and be ceplaced

with anothec in which gcammac would be de-emphasized.

Indeed in 1982 a new syllabus was intcoduced. In this new

syllabus, which is still in use cuecently, thece was vecy

little on the stcuctuce of the language. Its emphasis was

on communicative competence. We cemack on this cuccently-

used syllabus in Chaptec Five.

3.4 The Pcimacy Schools

On the 31st July 1975 the Cape Education Depactment sent a

cicculac let tee to the pcincipals of post-pcimacy schools

with pcimacy divisions, a copy of which was sent "foe

infocmation" also to Chief Inspectocs, Regional Chief

Inspectocs and Inspectocs of Education. In this lettee,

Cicculac Lettee Numbec 105. of 1975, they wece infocmed of

the Depactment's intcoduce Xhosa as a non-plan to

examination subject in Standacds Thcee to Five. The

Depactment's plan was as follows:

(a) The Depactment was 'composing' ,a pcogcamme foe the use

of both English- and Afcikaans-speaking pupils

(b) The Depactment intended, foe the implementation of thisr

pcogcamme, to make available the "necessacy tape-

cecocdings and othec teaching aids ••. "


135

(c) "Depending on the availability of suitably qualified

teaching staff", the p~og~amme would be offe~ed in

Standa~ds Th~ee to Five fo~ two pe~iods of about thi~ty

minutes each pe~ week "at a specific school"

(d) Because the Department was aware of the fact that

"teaching staff with suitable qualifications fo~ the

teaching of Xhosa at this stage" we~e not available,

the p~ogramme would be ca~~ied out at a limited numbe~

of schools on an expe~imental basisCi~cula~ No. lOS, 1975

In o~de~ to make the ~equi~ed selection óf the schools the

Depa~tment had to make su~e that schools were inte~ested and

willing to take pa~t in the expe~iment and that they had

suitably qualified teache~s fo~ the teaching of Xhosa. Fo~

this purpose, the schools were each sent a questionnai~e

with this ci~cula~ lette~ which they had to complete and

~etu~n by the 15th August 1975. The questionnai~e ~equi~ed

information such as the names and numbe~ of teache~s who had

studied Xhosa, the levels at which they did, thei~ levels of

proficiency in speaking, writing and ~eading Xhosa. The

most impo~tant info~mation with which the schools had to

fu~nish the Department was whether o~ not they would be

interested in the experiment and also whethe~ o~ not they

would be willing to take part in the expe~iment.


136

Other than stating that:

the Department intends to promote anelementary knowledge of Xhosa as a spoken languageamong pupils in the primary standards •••

the l~tter did not contain any reference to the importance

of such knowledge or to the objectives of the programme.

Presumably this was because these would be contained in the

outline of the programme. It can also be speculated that

the Department did not want to be seen to be persuading the

schools to take part in the experiment.

The Responses and Preparations

On the 21st November 1975 the Department sent out another

circular letter (Circular Letter Number 164 of 1975) to the

same schools. In this letter the responses to the

questionnaire sent out in July 1975 with Circular Letter

Number 105 were summarized. They were as follows:

(a) Only 49 (7%) of the 703 schools have teachers available

who can read and write Xhosa, and speak it fluently

(bl Of the 703 schools, 515 (73,3%) are interested in the

experiment. Of the 703 schools, 435 (61,9%) are

prepared to participate in it


137

(c) Of the 703 schools there are 188 (26,7%) schools that

are not interested and 268 (38,1%) schools that are not

prepared to participate in the experiment. A large

percentage of these schools do, in fact, show interest

and willingness, but have answered NO because they, for

example:

(i) do not have the required staff available

(ii) live in areas where not Xhosa, but some other

Bantu language, e.g. Tswana,

importance

is of particular

Circular No. 164, 1975

The Department selected 45 schools for the experimental

programme, as follows:

School Board Division Number of schools selected

Albany 1

Cape Town 6

Cradock 2

East London 12

Elliot 2

Graaff-Reinet 3

Humansdorp 1

Kingwilliamstown 3


138

Oudtshoor:n 1paar:l 2Par:ow 1Por:t Elizabeth 3Queenstown 2Stellenbosch 2Ster:kstr:oom 1Uitenhage 1Umtata 1Uniondale 1

In an attempt to assist these schools, the Depar:tmentar:r:anged one-day or:ientation cour:ses in Januar:y 1976

These wer:e held on(Cir:cular:Letter: Number: 167 of 1975).26, 28 and 30 Januar:y 1986 in Cape Town, Por:t Elizabeth andEast London r:espectively. Each cour:se was divided intounits. Unit I was on Lear:ning Xhosa Songs, Questions andDiscussion: Unit II was on Singing, Questions andDiscussion: and Unit III was devoted to Singing, Questions,Discussion, Language Games and Exer:cises and Use of Tapesand Over:head Pr:ojector:s.

Thus the teaching of Xhosa in the White pr:imar:yschools gotunder:way. However:, the r:esponses to the questionnair:esr:aised issues which indicated the pr:oblems in stor:e for: theDepar:tment in the implementation of the idea of teachingAfr:ican languages. That 73,3% of the schools wer:e


139

interested in the experiment, that there were only 49

and that schools wished

available who could teach Xhosa

to offer some other African

schools which had teachers

language, meant that the Department had to undertake a very

vigorous programme to meet this need. This also meant that

the universities and training colleges were themselves going

to be under great pressure from the schools to supply them

with suitably trained teachers. It was against this

background that the teacher-training colleges of Graaff-

Reinet, Port Elizabeth and Wellington introduced Xhosa at

third and fourth year level. No previous knowledge of or

training in Xhosa was required for taking the subject.

The number of primary schools at which Xhosa is offered has

gone up so much that by 1985 there were 114 of them.


140

CHAPTER FOUR

SOCIAL FACTORS IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING OF XHOSA

4.1 Int~oduction

Although the natu~e of language acquisition has fo~ a long

time been considered to be of inte~est mainly to

psychologists, linguists wo~king within the sub-field of

applied linguistics today a~e st~essing its impo~tance fo~

language teaching in gene~al and second language teaching in

pa~ticula~. These applied linguists a~e unanimous in thei~

conviction that the unde~standing of the p~ocess of fi~st

language acquisition facilitates the unde~standing of second

language acquisition. The va~ious theo~ies of fi~st

language acquisition will not be discussed in this thesis.

Howeve~, two points seem to be notewo~thy he~e, namely (a)

that, unde~ no~mal ci~cumstances, human beings a~e bo~n with

the capacity to acqui~e language, that is, a language

acquisition device, and (b) that the~e is a stage in human

development afte~ which this capacity to acqui~e language

gets weakened. The significance of these points fo~ second

language teaching will be discussed late~.

It is possible to talk of language acquisition as synonymous

with language lea~ning, but essentially the fo~me~ is the

p~oduct of. the latte~. It is fo~ this ~eason that applied


141

linguists make a distinction between language acquisition

that ~esults f~om spontaneous language lea~ning on the one

hand, and language acquisition that ~esults f~om guided

language lea~ning on the othe~. Fi~st language acquisition

is spontaneous and it occu~s:

••• when the lea~ne~ - usually a child - has beenwithout a language so fa~ and now acqui~es one.

Klein 1986 : 4

Although this no~mally involves one language, Klein (1986)

says, in ve~y inf~equent cases bilingual fi~st langu~ge

acquisition may take place. Examples of such cases in South

Af~ica would be those child~en of White fa~me~s o~ village

sto~e-keepe~s who acqui~e simultaneously both the language

of thei~ pa~ents and that of thei~ Black "mothe~s",

"siste~s", and "b~othe~s".

Second language acquisition ~esults f~om eithe~ spontaneous

o~ guided language lea~ning which sta~ts befo~e o~ afte~

p~oficiency in the fi~st language has been fully acqui~ed.

In othe~ wo~ds second language lea~ning may sta~t while

fi~st language lea~ning is still in 9~og~ess o~ afte~ it has

~eached the end state. Howeve~, since we a~e he~e conce~ned

mainly with the social facto~s in guided second language

lea~ning which no~mally sta~ts long afte~ the p~ocess of

first language acquisition has ~eached the end state, we

shall fi~st look at some of the social facto~s that


142

influence second language learning. Against this background

we shall attempt to consider how these are implicated in the

learning and teaching of Xhosa as a second language.

4.2 Social Factors in Second Language Learning

It may be necessary at this point to explain what the social

factors are considered to be for the purposes of this

thesis. Social factors are those conditions in the

learner's social environment in which the process of

language learning takes place, that are capable of promoting

or retarding the learner's interest to acquire the target

language itself. The breakdown of these (actors in the

following paragraphs is not according to their order of

importance. It should, however, be remembered that the

learner mayor may not be conscious of the influence of

these factors on his learning process.

4.2.1 Communication Needs

The need to acquire communicative skills in a second

language arises when an individual finds himself in a

situation in which he finds it difficult to cope without

such skills. Such a situation results in the individual

developing an urge or propensity, as Klein (1986) calls it,

to learn the language. The individual may not be aware of

this urge and the forces that are responsible for its


143

development, depending on his

is, the less the chances

age. The younger the person

are of awareness of this

propensity. A small child whose playmates speak a language

unknown to him may not be

language of his playmates;

of the little inconveniences

aware of the urge to learn the

communicate verbally with his

he may not even be fully aware

caused by his inability to

new friends. On the other

hand, a medical practitioner practising in a community whose

language he does not know, will be clearly aware of the need

to communicate directly with his patients. However, in both

cases the urge will facilitate and even help speed up the

learning process. Whatever the individual's situation is,

what is clear is that at the centre of these situations are

the practical benefits accruing from successful acquisition

of the target language. Again there is no reason why the

learner has to be aware of these benefits. What seems to be

necessary, however, is that the individual's situation

should be conducive to the development of the propensity.

But an individual's situation will not be fully conducive if

it does not allow him to translate the urge into action.

Therefore, although it is necessary for a person to

experience a situation that generates the need for learning

a language in order to develop an urge to do so, there are

other factors that may promote or inhibit a productive

reaction to that urge. These are such factors as access to


144

the ta~get language, attitude, the status of the language,

its variability etc.

4.2.2 Access

The learne~'s language acquisition device cannot ope~ate if

the learner has no access to the ta~get language. Chances

of acquisition are enhanced by more access and inhibited by

less access to the target language. Access itself is made

easy or difficult by othe~ facto~s, some of which have to do

with the context of lea~ning. A numbe~ of te~ms have been

used to ~efer to access "exposure", "immersion" and

"integ~ation" being some of them. In attempting to define

access Klein says:

The te~m 'access'distinct componentsthings in common,distinguished: one isavailable, the othe~ thefor communication.

in actual factwhich, whilst

should bethe amount~ange of

covers twohaving many

carefullyof 'input'

opportunities

1986 44

'Input' does not involve just the hea~ing by lea~ne~ of the

sounds in o~de~ fo~ him to be able to acqui~e knowledge of

the language. It is necessa~y that the learne~ should

expe~ience also some othe~ information which is in pa~allel

to the linguistic input in' orde~ fo~ lea~ning to be

possible.


14S

••• the learner must know who is speaking to whom,when and where, he must be able to watch theaccompanying 'body language' (gesture, facialexpression etc.), and he must note the reactionsof the listener. Eventually he should be able toestablish a relationship between identifiablesegments of the sound stream and particular piecesof the parallel information.

In other words the context of the linguistic input is more

crucial to learning than the input itself. Therefore input

is not complete without its real-life context. Books and

tapes are not able to make all this parallel information

available to the learner.

In addition to receiving this input the learner will need to

put the knowledge it has provided into practice by producing

his own utterances, that is, the input must by followed by

the learner's own output. In order to do this, he needs

opportunities for communicating with the speakers of the

target language. Klein's distinction between input and

opportunities for communication may be very marginal.

However, it is worth taking note of, since it is possible

foe a learner to be exposed to the input from the speakers

of the target language without having sufficient or any

opportunities to test his own production. This has to do

with what Schumann (1978) refers to as "integrative

strategies" and "social dominance patterns" (p.16S). These

are very closely related to the notion of access,

although, as we shall see below, they are also related to


146

another cluster of social factors which Schumann breaks down

into cohesiveness, congruence, size, enclosure and

attitude.

There are three integrative strategies mentioned by

Schumann. These are assimilation, preservation and

acculturation. He explains:

If the 2LL group assimilates, then it gives up itsown life style and values and adopts those of thetarget language group If the 2LL groupchooses preservation as its integration strategy,then it maintains its own life style and rejectsthose of the TL group ••• If the 2LL groupacculturates, then it adapts to the life style andvalues of the TL group but maintains its ownlife style and values for the intragroup use.

These strategies have varying implications for second

language acquisition. Assimilation maximizes access to the

target language and therefore facilitates acquisition, while

preservation minimizes therefore inhibitscontact and

acquisition. On the other hand, acculturation results in

varying degrees of acquisition.

Cohesiveness of learner's will promotethe group

preservation since the group members tend to remain separate

from the target language group if they are cohesive.

However, congruence between the two groups' cultures

promotes social contact since cultural differences are


147

ceduced tcemendously, to the point of being negligible.

This situation is conducive to language leacning.

With cegacd to size, Schumann (1978) maintains that if the

target language group is large, intcagcoup contact is more

frequent than the intergroup and therefore oppoctunities foe

communication are reduced (p.166). Howevee, the effects of

the numerical differences between the two groups will vacy

accocding to the other social factors that are at play. As

we have already seen, communication oppoctunities are

necessary foe second language acquisition. These may be

enhanced if the target language group is large. Yet, if the

learnec's group is too small, it may be moce cohesive and

choose presecvation as its integcative stcategy. On the

othec hand, if the target language group is too small, even

though intergcoup contact is sufficiently frequent, the

learner's language may be the instcument of group

interaction.

Enclosure cefecs to the extent to which the leacnec's group

and the tacget language group shace the same facilities,

pcofessions, tcades and ccafts in theic area (Schumann,

1978: 166). If they shace the same educational, celigious

and cecceational facilities and if theic pcofessions, trades

and crafts are the same, contact between the two groups is

enhanced. This facilitates access to the language. If

theic situation is opposite, enclosuce is said to be high.


148

The highee the enclosuee, the less the access and theeefoee

the less the chances of language acquisition. The level of

enclosuee is, to a veey laege extent, deteemined by othee

social factoes, such as the diffeeences in economic

position (which in tuen eesults in diffeeences in

educational achievement); eeligious diffeeences and the

countey's policies that deteemine the use of facilities as

well as the eesidential disteibution of the language geoups.

Feom the above we can see that the notion of access eevolves

aeound the issue of the social distance that exists between

the leaenee's geoup and the taeget language geoup. A wide

social gap between these two geoups makes it difficult foe

the leaenee to expeeience the language in natueal opeeation.

He depends solely on the lessons whose scope is limited and

eetaeded by the amount of time spent in explaining the

geammatical eules of the language. Reliance on geammatical

eules without social integeation tends to teeat a second

language as a foeeign language. The futility of the

peactice of concenteating on the geammatical eules in the

teaching of communicative skills is summed up by Klein as

follows:

Imagine the deiving insteuctoe letting the leaeneepeactise peessing the clutch and opeeating thegeaes without moving the cae.

1986 45


149

Although the language teacher may do everything in class to

approximate a real-life communication situation, the

acquisition process will not go far without access to the

most important material necessary for language acquisition,

namely the speakers of the target language.

In the treatment of social distance as an inhibitor of

second language acquisition there are two contradictions

that have to be taken into account. Firstly, it should be

noted that if the learners happen to belong to a socio-

politically dominant group, it is possible that they may

learn the language of the subordinate group to maintain

their position of dominance and thereby the social distance

is maintained. In such a case the propensity for learning

is rooted in a desire to control the subordinate group.

Soldiers occupying a country, for example, may desire to

acquire the language of the occupied country, solely because

proficiency in it is crucial to their control of the country

concerned. Secondly, it should be noted that individual

learners may violate the modal tendencies of their group.

In South Africa, for example, there are many white learners

who have acquired proficiency in Xhosa against all the odds

that inhibit access to its speakers. In these cases success

in acquiring the language can be attributed to personality

factors.


150

4.2.3 Attitude

In Chapter 2 we saw how important attitude is in socio-

linguistic surveys. We saw also

responsible for the development

the factors

of language

that are

attitudes.

These are factors such as the socia-political context of

learning the history of relations between the learner's

group and the target language group: the variability of the

target language: the differences or similarities in the two

groups' cultures: the relative' prestige of the target

language and language instruction methodologies. These

factors, together with the factors mentioned in sections

4.2.1 and 4.2.2 above, contribute collectively in shaping

attitudes towards a language or language variety. In

addition to these there is also the question of how long the

individual intends to live with the speakers of the target

language. If the learner knows that he is not going to stay

among the speakers of the target language for any

considerable length of time, he may have a casual attitude

towards their language. Such a learner may have only a

transient interest which will come to an end with his

intended departure.

In Chapter Two attitude was dealt with in general terms. In

this section it will be dealt with in terms of the extent to

which it influences the second language learner's motivation

for learning. Here we make a distinction between two


151

learner types, namely the child type and the adult type.

80th these types exist within communities that have certain

language value judgements which influence theirs. However,

because of the age differences, these language stereotypes

have different manifestations on the two learnei types.

A young child learning a second language is unlikely to have

any conscious beliefs about its functional significance,

have already

starts learning

created .Ln him

it, his

certaineven though by

environment may

the time he

awarenesses about its speakers. Even at this stage,

however, although he may not be aware of it, certain social

factors are already at work in shaping his attitudes towards

the target language. The current attitudes in the community

and within the school may manifest themselves in the casual

remarks made about the language and its speakers, such as:

"it's a difficult language to learn", "it's a primitive

language", "it's inferior", "it sounds aggressive" etc. The

school may have certain practices in the teaching of the

language which unconsciously influence his attitude. The

time devoted to it in relation to the time devoted to the

other languages, the fact that not

school, while the others are learnt

everybody learns it at

by everybody and the

fact that it is treated as a non-examination subject, may

make the child subconsciously adopt an attitude that

inhibits motivation. All this places an enormous strain on

the teacher whose duty is to motivate the learner. This


152

attitude may manifest itself in ~oo~ pe~fo~mance and a dcop-

out ~ate which does not pa~allel the lea~ne~s' aptitude that

is ~eflected by pe~fo~mance in the othe~ subjects.

As the child lea~ne~ advances in age and g~ade, he g~adually

displays ce~tain attitudinal tendencies that app~oximate

those of the adult learne~. Although a numbe~ of studies

have been made on children's attitudes towards language,

there seems to be no unanimity on the stage of child

development at which children begin to display certain

attitudinal tendencies. These studies have been made in

situations whe~e the learne~s and the speake~s of the target

language live together. This makes the applicability of

their findings to the learning of Xhosa as a second language

difficult. This is because the legal prescriptions that

determine the social-demographic arrangement of the two

groups are more inhibiting to the development of positive

attitudes.

The point of departure in many of these studies is the stage

at which the child~en are able to discriminate, on the one

hand, between one language variety and another, and on the

other hand, between one language and another. Acco~ding to

Day (1982), Labov claimed that:

.•• he had evidence indicating that it was notuntil 19 or 20 years of age that full sensitivityto socially significant dialect features isacquired.


153

The other scholars mentioned by Day (1982) place the age at

which children are able to make language attitudinal

judgements between three and four and a half years. But

they all agree that by the age of five children are already

able to discriminate linguistically (p.117). Another

conviction shared by these researchers is that children's

language attitudes are consistent with those held by the

adult members of their communities. These experiments on

children's attitudes towards language also reveal a relation

between racial and ethnic attitudes and language attitudes.

Although an adult learner- is faced with the problem o~ a

language acquisition device which is past its prime, he has

an advantage over the child learner because he is conscious

of the functional significance of the language as well as of

his communicative needs. This is, however, not to say that

an adult learner's language acquisition process is immune to

the other contraints that operate alongside his awareness of

his own needs.

The question to consider, however, is: in a situation where

the number of inhibiting social factors is minimal, how is

attitude implicated in language learning? We have seen in

section 4.2.2 how important the level of input is for

language acquisition. However, studies have been carried

out that have shown that input by itself is of no

consequence to language learning. Although it may be one of


154

the most important requirements for language acquisition, it

pays more dividends in the presence of a positive attitude

towards the target language. The manner in which such a

positive attitude benefits the learner is the extent to

which it yields motivation to learn the language. A

motivated learner of language is one who is not only ready

at all times to interact with the speakers of the target

language to obtain the necessary input, but also one who is

able to utilize that intake for acquisition. It is in this

context that linguists working on the issue of attitude in

language teaching talk of a socio-affective filter. If the

filter is strong, the acquisition is less because a strong

socio-affective filter allows less intake than a weak

filter.

Thus, attitudinal factors relating to languageacquisition will be those that contribute to a lowaffective filter.

Krashen 1981 22

There are two types of motivation strategies in which a weak

socio-affective filter is realised. Firstly, there is the

integrative (1981 . .. 22)motivation Krashenstrategy.

defines integrative motivation as the "desire to be like

valued members of the community that speak the second

language ••• ". Integrative motivation has been found to be a

predictor of a low filter. Studies made by a number of

scholars have shown that integrative motivation is even more


155

important in language learning than aptitude. It benefits

the learner in a number of ways. An integratively

motivated learner does not feel any threat from the speakers

of the target language. This motivation also affects the

learner's classroom behaviour and outlook. He does not fear

to make the mistakes that are generally predictable in

second language learning. This puts him in a better

position than the others to benefit from the teacher and

that, in turn, facilitates a faster development of positive

attitude towards the teacher. One of the benefits of

integrative motivation has been ~roved to be the development

of more staying power. A study carried out by Gardner and

Lambert among English-speaking learners of French in

Montreal showed that:

While drop-outs did tend to get lower grades andshow lower aptitude, the primary motivation forthe stay-ins showed more integrative motivation,as well as overall motivation to learn French.

Krashen 1981 27

Learners who are integratively motivated have the necessary

will to persist in second language studies.

Integrative motivation is an aggregate of a number of

factors that relate to the personality of the learner. Low

anxiety is one of the features that characterize an

integratively motivated learner. He never fears that

interaction with the speakers of the target language may


156

result in loss of identity. He is self-confident and has an

outgoing personality. Quoting from H.O. Brown's Introduction

to Snow and Ferguson (1977), Krashen sums up the advantages

of self-confidence as follows:

Presumably, the person with self-esteem is able toreach out beyond himself more freely, to be lessinhibited, and because of his ego strength, tomake the necessary mistakes involved in languagelearning with less threat to his ego.

1981 23

Although Krashen (1981) feels that there is as yet. no

conclusive evidence to prove it, he cites some scholars who

have gone to the extent of trying to prove that

integratively motivated learners are also able to empathize

with the speakers of the target language as a result of

their personalities and conducive social contexts of

learning.

Empathy, ••• is also predicted to be relevant toacquisition in that the empathetic person may bethe one who is able to identify more easily withspeakers of a target language and thus accepttheir input as intake for language acquisition(lowered affective filter).

The other type of motivation is instrumental motivation.

This type of motivation is determined by the practical value

of proficiency in the target language. Thus, whether the

filter is strong or weak in instrumentally motivated

learners depends very largely on how the learner perceives


157

the functional

need. On this

integrate with

value of the language in relation to his

will depend also the level of desire

the speakers. What seems to be

to

the

disadvantage with instrumental motivation is that, unlike

integrative motivation, it may at times be characterized by

a certain degree of compulsion. The learner's intended

career may indirectly compel him to acquire the target

language. A learner may be compelled directly by an

institution of learning to acquire the target language to

fulfil certain requirements. In both cases motivation may

cease: in the first case it may cease with change of career

plans, and in the second, it may cease with the fulfilment

of the prescribed requirement. However, the importance of

instrumental motivation cannot be underestimated in second

language learning. Language manipulates people in the same

way as people manipulate it. One may be instrumentally

motivated to learn a language but, because of the influence

of language, may end up integratively motivated. A Standard

Five pupil who is required to learn a language in order to

be admitted to Standard Six, may be so influenced by the

language that his perspectives of and attitude towards its

speakers are completely re-orientated. Consequently he may

persist in his learning and feel the urge to reach out to

them in the same way that an integratively motivated learner

does. There are many cases in South Africa today of people

who owe their proficiency in one African language or another

to the need they once had of the language for research


158

purposes, and who would confess to how the language changed

their perspectives of the speakers and their culture values.

4.2.4 Language Variability

In Chapter 2 we saw that language is not homogeneous. In

addition to the standard variety, which is normally the

target in guided learning, the language learner has to

contend also with the non-standard varieties which are more

dominant in the real life communication situations outside

the learning institution. The existence of non-standard

varieties is another social factor which inhibits learning,

especially if the social context of learning is one in which

a strong socio-affective filter is predictable - e.g. no

access, high anxiety, unawareness of needs etc. The issue

of language varieties and variety-promoting factors, as well

as the emotional crisis they may cause, have been dealt with

in the preceding chapters and therefore will not be pursued

any further.

4.3 Significance for Xhosa as a Second Language

As was pointed out in Chapter 3, learning Xhosa as a second

language in South Africa has always coincided with being a

White learner. Although the so-called Coloured schools are

now beginning to introduce Xhosa in their curricula, we

shall here attempt to look at how the social factors are


159

implicated in the teaching and learning of Xhosa as a second

language at the White institutions.

4.3.1 The Socio-eolitical Context

The history of relations between the Xhosa and the Whites in

South Africa has been that of conflict. At its initial

stages this conflict was characterized by physical

confrontation in the form of a series of wars known as the

Frontier Wars, the last of which was in 1877. These were

wars of conquest and dispossession and out of which the

Xhosa emerged as losers. Conquest and dispossession meant

the final colonization of their country by a super-power,

Great Britain. With everything, except their numerical

strength, having passed from their hands, the Xhosa,

together with all the other indigenous races of the country,

became a servant race under the socio-political dominance of

the White races. The exit of the British colonialist in

1961 when South Africa

not put the indigenous

footing with their White

became an independent Republic, did

races of South Africa on an equal

counterparts. Not satisfied with

this, the indigenous races have since been engaged in

conflict with the White races. Although this conflict has

come a long way since the Frontier Wars, and although the

relations between the Black and White races can be said to

have improved tremendously in relation to what they were in

the past, tension between the two races has always been


160

thece, albeit with vacying degcees of

last ten yeacs this tension has been

intensity. In the

chacactecized by

political stcife which has culminated in the declacation of

a state of emecgency.

This, then, is the socio-political backgcound against which

Xhosa has been and still is taught at the White institutions

in South Afcica. The question we have to ask is: What ace

the implications of all this foe the teaching and leacning

of Xhosa at White institutions? In attempting to wock out

the answecs to this question, it has to be cemembeced that

the socio-political domination of the Black man by the White

man in South Afcica is anchoced on a statutocy policy of

sepacation populacly known as apactheid. This is a policy

that is cealized in a numbec of laws that pcohibit the

shacing of cesidential, educational, celigious and

cecceational centces by Blacks and Whites, that is, a policy

that has constitutionally kept Blacks and Whites apact,

although it must be conceded that lately thece have been

some changes. These changes would have some limited

advantages foe language leacning and teaching but the effect

on othec factoes will be dealt with below.

4.3.2 The Status of Xhosa

The socio-political subocdination of the Xhosa meant also

the subocdination of theic language. Although thece ace a


161

number of cases in history of governments deliberately

suppeessing subordinate

Xhosa did not assume

languages language varieties,oe

and (latera lower status in relation to English

Afrikaans) as a result of explicit

by the various goveenments in South

Dutch

constitutional action

Africa. The status of a language in a country is determined

by the status of its speakers. Although Xhosa was taught as

a subject in Black schools, mainly in the Cape, it did not

have any official status. English became the language of

education, commerce and politics •. The use of English as a

medium of instruction at school staeted quite early, in

Standard Theee. The ability to read and write English was

associated with social and educational advancement.

Naturally the growth of literacy and change in the socio-

economic conditions of the Xhosa were accompanied by a

growing prestige of English in the eyes of the literate and

semi-literate Xhosa. Everybody aspired to proficiency in

English, something which the earlier Xhosa creative writers

relished dramatizing in their works. School authorities

punished pupils foe using the vernacular within the school

premises; university students who took Xhosa as a major

subject were looked down upon by theie colleagues because

they were said to be taking the "easy option", while those

who took English as a major subject were considered to be

the cream of the crop.


162

As elsewhece in the continent, the colonialist did not

considee it necessacy to acquice any ocal skills in the

indigenous languages, unless he was a tcadec oe a missionacy

among the indigenous caces. The status of Xhosa was not

enhanced by the documented misguided views of the eacliec

linguists, some of whose cemarks about the state of African

languages projected these languages as barbaric. Fivaz, in

his inaugural talk cites one such view as expressed by one

linguist as late as 1960:

Bantu languages (other than Swahili) are oral.Indeed to write them down is to give them arigidity as unknown to their speakers as to thesweet bird-songsters of the forest.

Potter 1960 as quoted by Fivaz 1974 7

The bistocy of the teaching of Xhosa in White institutions

in South Africa shows clearly that Xhosa, and indeed other

Afcican languages, are now seen in a different light by the

White communities, just as they are seen in a different

light in Black communities as a result of the Black

Consciousness Movement of the late sixties. However, Xhosa

still has a lower status in relation to English and

Afrikaans. This is an inhibiting factor in the leacning of~

Xhosa as a second language. Yet the irony of this situation

is that, despite this celatively low status of Xhosa, White

people, children or adults, who are competent in Xhosa, are

envied and even cespected in a growing number of circles.

Whether this envy is motivated by academic judgement values


163

or by the practical benefits associated with this competence

is of no significance here. What is significant here is

that it needs to be exploited to the benefit of teaching and

learning. Schumann explains the relevance of language

status for second language learning thus:

If the 2LL group is politically, culturally,technically or economically superior (dominant) tothe TL group, it will tend not to learn the targetlanguage.

1978 165

This is so because the status of a language is determined by

the status of its speakers. The issues of socio-political

context and the status of Xhosa, as factors that inhibit

learning, are compounded by others that are closely related

to them, such as the needs of the learners, social distance,

attitude and personnel.

4.3.3 Xhosa-learners' Needs

Feom what has b~en said in Chapter 3 about the history of

the teaching of Xhosa at White institutions (universities),

it is clear that initially the study of Xhosa was motivated

1( by two needs. Firstly, the need for learning Xhosa was felt___ ...

because of a desire to advance scientific knowledge.

Secondly, this need was mot iv'ated by the awareness of the

importance of language in fac\t._itating political control. --*On the other hand, the missionaries and the traders who had


164

wocked among the Xhosa had cecognized the functional

impoctance of ~coficiency in the language foe theic wock and

teade cespectively. Thus, foe guite a long time Xhosa was

the language of the convectoe and the tcadec. This is the

unfortunate aspect of the histocy of the leacning of Xhosa

as a second language because it means that Xhosa gcadually

became a language foe giving instcuctions as a cesult of the

cole relations that held between the convectoe and the

convected, and between the tradec and the consumec and,

later in the case of facmers and laboucecs, between the

employee and employee.

It was then left to the missionacy to sensitize the White

community to the functional significance of Xhosa in the

kind of cole celationship that pectained between it and the

Black community. This is cleac fcom the phcase books that

the missionacies pcoduced foe the non-native leacnecs of the

language. The following ace examples of communication

situations and dialogue that one missionacy, James Stewact,(

envisaged:

BREAKFAST

This chaptec is aboutcooking.

(speaks about) food and

Bceakfast,

Whece is the cook?

She is outside the dooc,

Call hee,


165

Would you call her to come into the house?

You are called,

Is the breakfast ready?

Yes, Madam. Yes, Sir,

Boil some eggs,

Boil six eggs,

Boil them soft,

Boil them hard,

I also want some bacon,

I want you to toast some bread on, the coals,

Fry the bacon with the eggs,

Make tea and coffee,

Call the other girl,

Clean those knives,

Strain the milk,

Pour it into that dish,

Cream,

Take off the cream,

Wipe the table

Put the tablecloth on the table,

Bring the cups and plates, and knives and spoons,

Wait to help at the table,

Take away the dishes,

Shake the tablecloth,

Sweep the floor,

After that, go and wash the dishes.


166

ABOUT WORK IN THE HOUSE

I want a boy to work in the house,

His work will be to clean the boots; and to gomessages; and wait at the table,

Are you willing to do that?

Yes, I am willing; I have done that work before,

Who was your last master?

It was Mr Smith,

How long did you stay with him?

I stayed two years; six months; eight months,

Have you a certificate, lit, a paper of character?

Yes, I have it, here it is,

What wages (money) do you want?

I want sixteen shillings a month,

I want a pound a month,

That is too much;how you work,

I cannot give that, till I see

What will you give me?

I will give you fourteen shillings a month andyour food,

I agree to that,

When will you come?

I want you to come on the first of next month,

I will come then, at that time,

Can you speak English?

No, I can speak Xhosa only,

You ought to learn to speak English,

Yes, sir, I will try.


167

Fcom these

Xhosa was

we can see the extent to

considered useful. The

which pcoficiency in

impoctance of the

knowledge of Xhosa in the advancement of scientific

knowledge is bocne out by the vast litecatuce that was

churned out by scholacs wocking in the field of African

linguistics. In this situation is to be found the source of

conflict between the needs and ends to meet them, that has

characterized the leacning of Xhosa as a second language.

When focmal instruction in Xhosa was introduced in White

institutions it was entrusted to people who were essentially

equipped to deal with the language as a means of advancing

scientific knowledge and not as an instcument of intecaction

with its speakers. On the othec hand those members of the

community who needed the language, needed it for

communication pucposes. The ceality of their situation was

such that they communicated with the speakecs of Xhosa in a

mastec-secvant celationship. Hence communication

instcuction in the form of books had this orientation. Role

playing execcises had to ceflect this ocientation since

anything else would be in conflict with ceality.

The gcadual change in political outlook, both of the White

and of the Black people, bcought with it changes in

pecspectives. Advances made by the Blacks in education

helped to make the White communities cealize that thece were

othec ëomains within which intecaction with Black people was


168

possible. Political demands by Blacks peessueized the

goveenment to make some concessions. These demands,

togethee with the geadual libeealization of some sections of

the White communities, speeded up the change in

peespectives. This change in peespectives was accompanied

by a ceetain degeee of panic. The political upeisings of

the eaely sixties ceeated an uege to leaen the Black man's

language in oedee to gain a bet tee undeestanding of his

cultuee, histoey and geneeally to make it possible to

undecstand the Blacks as peopl~. Newspapees and individuals

encoueaged people to eecognize the need to leaen Afeican

languages. This eesulted in a numbee of schools intcaducing

Xhosa as a subject. The initial need foe leaening Xhosa was

aptly summaeized in the inteoductions of the school syllabus

pamphlets. In the syllabus foe secondaey schools which

appeared in the Education Gazette of 16 May 1974, one of the

aims of teaching African languages is given as:

Om die leeelinge se belangstelling in die taal enkultuur van die Bantoe aan te wakkee en sodoendeby hulle 'n betee begeip van die Bantoe as mensmoontlik te maak.

TRANSLATION:

To instil the pupils' interest in the language andcultuee of the Bantu in oeder to enable them tohave a better undeestanding of the Bantu as aperson.


169

Latee, on 11 Novembee 1976 the Education Gazette contained a

syllabus foe Xhosa (Standaed Geade) in which some of the

aims of teaching Xhosa weee stated as:

20101 Om leeelinge in staat te stelom metmoedeetaalspeekecs van Xhosa te kommunikeeeen sodoende wedeesydse cespek en agtingtussen eeesgenoemde en laasgenoemde tebevoedee;

2.1.3 Om leeelinge se belangstelling in die Xhosa-kultuue te ontwikkel;

TRANSLATION:

2.1.1 To enable pupils to communicate with mothee-tongue speakees of Xhosa in oedee to pcomotemutual eespect;

2.1.3 To develop the inteeest of pupils in allfacets of Xhosa cultuee;

It can thus be concluded feom the above that the motivation

foe leaening Xhosa changed feom control to peaceful

coexistence. Howevee, in the South Afeican context it is

eeasonable to assume that coexistence means diffeeent things

to diffeeent people. Foe some people it may mean the

maintenance of the political status quo, yet foe othees it

may mean a complete cevolution in the status quo. What is

cleae, howevee, is that the evee-changing face of the

countey, socially, educationally, economically and, to a

ceetain extent, politically, continues to change

communication situations between Whites and Blacks. These

new communication situations eesult in new awaeeness of the

need to leaen Xhosa. Changes in the job macket ace causing


170

an increasing need for the acquisition of proficiency in

Xhosa. New career opportunities demand it. We think here

of such fields as translation, mass media, and with the

creation of independent homelands in which Xhosa is an

official language, the diplomatic corps. This proficiency

has now become a significant feature in commerce and

industry.

integrated.

Learning institutions are gradually becoming

The change in the needs of the learner of Xhosa has been

acknowledged by the Cape Education Department by designing a

Xhosa syllabus which has shifted completely from a

structure-based to a communication skills-based method of

teaching. This has also been acknowledged by respondents to

a questionnaire in the Cape Peninsula.

Despite the above promising picture of people's awareness of

the need for acquisition of communication skills in Xhosa,

there are still many problems in this regard. Some of these

are dealt with in the paragraphs below. One of these is the

effect of the past on the present. The above picture does

not necessarily mean that all sections of the White

communities have similar perceptions of the need to acquire

communication skills in African languages. It is

significant to note that The Core Syllabus for Bantu

Languages Third Language Higher and Standard Grade, which

the Joint Matriculation Board sent out on 1 November 1983 to


the Committee of Heads of Education, suggested the following

conveesational oe contact situations between Black and White

"foe the puepose of communicative tuition"

The conveesational oe contact situations feomwhich a choice may be made, ace

in the housefoe woek,collectoe,telephonic

with a secvant, a pecson lookinga hawkee, a lost peeson, aa pa Ln t er, a repe i rer . a

contact with somebody, etc.

aeound the house witheemovee, a milkman, aetc.

a gaedenee, a gaebagedeliveeee, a postman,

in the stceet with a lost pecson (looking foethe way), a hawkee, a constable, etc.

at the gaeage withlubeication secvicemechanic, etc.

a petcolassistant,

attendant, aan assistant

on the building site with a beicklayee oe hisassistant, a caepentee oe an electcician,etc.

on the school geound with a gaedenee,acleanee, etc.

in the shop oe supeemaeket with somebody busyunpacking, a secueity officee, a cashiee,etc.

in a hotel oe cestaucant oe eoad cafe with awaitee oe a eeceptionist oe a eoom attendantoe a poctee

The othee peoblem is that of the conteadictions that emanate

feom the socio-political context within which the leaening

While theof Xhosa as a second languag~ takes place.

changing face of South Afeica is inceeasing the need foe

leaening Afeican languages, the goveenment policies that

171


172

determine the lives of the Soutn African ~eople, as well as

the reaction to these policies, serve only to polarize the

Black and White communities. This renders all attempts to

meet the needs of the language learner less effective.

4.4 The Practical Effects

Although it is possible from the preceding paragraphs to

predict the kind of effect these social factors have had on

tne teaching and learning of Xhosa as a second language, we

shall here attempt to highlight these in the form of the

problems that both the teachers and learners have had to

contend with. Information about these problems has been

drawn from the records of the Cape Education Department,

and, through the use of questionnaires and informal

discussions from individuals involved in the teaching and

learning of Xhosa as a second language. I have also drawn

from my personal experiences with teaching Xhosa to non-

mother-tongue speakers. Some of these problems are

reflected in examination and test question papers. Although

an attempt is being made to give a break-down of these

problems according to the various areas in which the effect

of social factors has shown itself, the lines of demarcation

between these areas are very thin. The reason for this

seems to be that all these problems revolve around the issue

of the socio-political context within which the learning and

teaching of Xhosa take place.


4.4.1 Planning

173

The long overdue interest in African languages on the part

of the White communities almost caught the learning

institutions and the education departments with their pants

down. The teaching and learning of Xhosa had for a long

time been confined to mother tongue speakers. Consequently,

virtually all the available teaching and learning material

was oriented towards first language teaching, and not

towards communicative skills ~eaching. It was therefore

structure-based. Students who

did so either out of interest

pursue. academic careers in

departments at the universities

studied xhosa at university

or because they intended to

the language. Education

did not offer teaching

method in Xhosa, since there were no schools to which they

could go and teach the subject. The Black universities and

teacher training colleges did

teaching of African languages

there was no need for it in

position has not changed.

not offer methods in the

as second languages, because

the Black schools this

In response to this interest in Xhosa, any school could

introduce it as a subject if the parents, pupils and

teachers requested it. The principal and his school

the request to the Education

C.J. de Jager, a retired schools

wouldcommittee convey

Department. According to


174

inspector who was the first chairperson of the Xhosa Study

Committee:

If the department was convinced that there was ademand for the new subject in that school, thatthe quota for that school justified a Xhosateacher, that classroom accommodation wasavailable, and that there was a reasonable chancethat a Xhosa teacher would be procured, theapplication was usually approved of ••.

(personal communication)

In many cases when there was that reasonable chance of

getting a teacher it was a member of staff within the school

who, as a result of home background, had a speaking

knowledge of the language, or one who happened to have done

it at university.

An interesting observation about this situation is that,

unlike in the case of the introduction of Afrikaans at the

Black sChools in the Cape during the mid-fifties, the

Education Department did not have any influence on the

resolutions of the schools. For this reason, no planning

preceded the introduction of the subject. This does seem to

confirm the differences in perceptions with regard to the

need for learning Xhosa. On the other hand when Afrikaans

was introduced at the Black schools in the Cape, indications

were that it had been thoroughly planned for at departmental

level. Teachers, mainly from the Orange Free State, who

were not only able to speak the language, but who were also


175

qualified to teach it, were placed at all the schools with

Standard Six. Others were sent to the post-primary schools.

In the case of post-primary schools some of these teachers

were mother-tongue speakers of Afrikaans. In-service

courses were arranged to train other teachers. The subject

was not optional - all schools and all pupils had to take

it. Because of this planning and because of the

availability of teaching material, and also because of the

keen involvement of the education authorities in the

programme of Afrikaans teaching and learning, it did not

take long before training colleges and universities could

produce teachers who were competent enough to take over from

tnose teachers who had been "imported" by the Education

Department from the Orange Free State.

There obviously were other factors motivating the

departmental keenness in the Afrikaans teaching programme in

the Black schools. Granted the absence of these factors in

the case of Xhosa, there is, nevertheless, no doubt that

many problems relating to the introduction of Xhosa at the

White schools would have been averted if there had been

proper state planning.

4.4.2 Teachers and Teacher Training

In dealing with the personnel situation in the teaching of

Xhosa as a second language, it should be remembered that the


176

teachecs ace dcawn fcom communities that ace genecally

the Blacklinguistically disadvantaged in celation tocommunities. While many White people speak only two South

Afcican languages, English and Afcikaans, many Xhosa

speakecs can communicate in both these languages and have

passive competence in othec Nguni languages. The teachecs

who teach Xhosa as a second language ace themselves victims

of social factoes ovec which they have no contcol.

Most of these teachecs leacnt the language at school within

a stcuctuce-ociented fcamewock. Those who have gone thcough

the peesent communicative skills-based syllabus and who

continued with Xhosa at tectiacy level, ace still eithec at

tcaining college oe univecsity. The ficst Senioc

Cectificate examination on this syllabus was set in

Novembec/Decembec 1984. It is ceasonable, thecefoce, on the

basis of this alone, to assume that the peesent teachecs ace

undec-pcepaced foe coping with the demands of the peesent

syllabus, except those few who gcew up speaking the

language. This situation has shown itself thcough feed-back

that the Cape Education Depactment has had fcom the teachecs

with cegacd to the kinds of pcoblems that they expecienced.

Ducing 1979 the Language Institute of the Univecsity of

Stellenbosch undectook a sucvey of these and came up with

cevealing findings about the Xhosa teachecs' situation (in

the Westeen Cape). The most intecesting aspect of this


177

study was how the teachecs evaluated themselves in the

vacious components of the subject:

Good Avecage WeakOcal pcoficiency 17% 66% 17%Reading Pcoficiency 41% 59%Wciting Competence 47% 53%Undecstanding of the Language 41% 59%

With cegacd to how they felt about theic tcaining in Xhosa

Teaching Method, 59% felt that it had been weak: 12% felt

it had been avecage and 17% felt it had been good. The

othec 12% had had no focmal tcaining in teaching method.

With cegacd to theic expecience with the subject at

univecsity, only 29% felt that theic pcepacation had been

good: 59% felt it had been avecage and 6% felt it had been

weak while anothec 6% could not evaluate it.

Most of the teacnecsl cemacks about theic expeciences with

the subject at univecsity ceflected the fact that the

univecsities had not yet corne to gcips with the needs of the

schools. These ace some of them.

1. In Goeie akademiese opleiding in fonetiek, fonologie,

ens maac In swak opleiding in pcaktiese taalgebcuik.


178

2. Lesings was onintecessant; dosente onvoocbeceid vic

pcaktiese klasse; te min mondeling weck.

3. Te veel klem op teocetiese aspekte as

ondecwysbehoeftes ••• Baie dele van kucsus is ieeelevant

vic skoolondeccig, bv. linguistiek, vecgelykende

Bantoetaalkunde ens.

6. te veel en te gou klem op tcansfocmasioneel

genecatiewe gcammatika wat nutteloos is vicskoolondeccig.

Botha 1979 2

TRANSLATION:

1. A good academic tcaining in phonetics, phonology, etc.,

but a weak tcaining in the pcactical use of the

language.

2. Lectuces wece not intecesting; lectucecs not pcepaced

foe pcactical classes; vecy little ocal wock.

3. Too much emphasis on theocetical aspects as an

Many components of the coucseeducational necessity

ace ieeelevant foe school teaching, e.g. linguisties,

compacative Bantu linguistics, etc.


180

4.4.3 The Learners

The problems of the teacher:s with a subject are,

the learner:s.

second language

essentially, predictor:s of the

This is especially the case

problems of

with the

learners of Xhosa because their: social backgrounds and the

context of their learning are themselves predictors of

strong socio-affective filters, lack of integrative

motivation, high anxiety, lack of empathy and, above all,

minimal chances of access to the speakers of the language.

One of the teething problems that featured prominently in

the feedback from the schools - through correspondence or

findings of surveys - was the question of big numbers in

Standard Six. This would have been the most encouraging

aspect in the history of second language teaching of Xhosa,

were it not for the operation of the other social factors.

This showed that, for whatever r:eason, there was enough

enthusiasm from the pupils to learn Xhosa. Moreover, these

learners had the advantage of youth. This enthusiasm to

take Xhosa at the primary schools has continued to grow

since 1976. In 1976 Xhosa was offered at 41 primary schools

to 3 800 pupils in Standards Three to Five (De Jager 1977).

In 1985 there were 114 primary schools offering Xhosa to

22 884 pupils in the same standards (Cape Education

Department - personal communication). These figur:es do not

include the private schools. Despite this encouraging


181

picture at the primary schools, the statistics at the post-

pcimary schools portray a completely different picture.

According to De Jager (1977), in 1977 there were eight high

schools that offered Xhosa to 1 877 pupils in Standacds Six

to Ten, and yet in 1986 38 high schools offered Xhosa to

only 1 390 pupils in the same standacds. This cepresents a

seciously high dcop-out rate between primacy and post-

pcimacy school.

A dcop in the number of learnees who continue with the

subject beyond primary school may be predictable if it is

cemembeced that up to Standacd 5 the subject is taken as a

non-examination subject. It is possible that a number of

them ducing these earlier years decide to take it

specifically for that reason. Therefoce they drop it when

it stacts demanding more of theic time as an examinatinn

subject. But this contrasts with what we said earlier,

namely that involvement with a language has potential to

generate moce interest even in the case of those who were

initially not fully motivated (see Section 4.2.3). It is

also possible to pcedict the dcop in numbees on the basis of

ceasons to be found within the language itself, such as the

big structural diffecence between it and the first language

which eenders it moce difficult to cope with.


182

Thece ace, howevee, othec possible explanations. One of the

pcoblems that has been cited by many teachees is that theic

classes ace heteeogeneous, consisting of leacnees who gcew

up speaking the language, those who had done it in the

pcevious standaeds and those that weee beginnecs. Thissituation is caused by the fact that theca ace no admissioncequicements. This allows foe discoueagement andfcustcation on the pact of all theee categocies.

The othec possible explanation is the question of time givento the subject. In many cases this is one houe pee week.

This amounts to about focty houes a yeae. This pcoblem is

closely calated to the biggest pcoblem that faces the secondlanguage leacnecs of Xhosa, that is, exposuee to thelanguage and its speakecs. In section 4.2.2 we have seenhow impoctant it is foe second language leacnees to have

access to the taeget language thcough contact with its

speakecs. The second language leaenecs of Xhosa do not have

this contact, foe the eeasons of the socio-political contexto

of theic leacning. It inhibits the development of positive

attitudes towaeds the speakees of the taeget language andtheic language. The question of access puts teachecs in avecy difficult position. In ocdee foe theic teaching to be

of immediate use to theic pupils, they have to choose those

communication situations in which the pupils ace likely to

be able to peactise what they leacnt. Conscious of thepupils' backgcounds, the teachee will teach them how to


183

communicate with domestics, shop assistants, petcol

attendants, ushecs in packing lots etc. Unconsciously oe

consciously, this may give the pupils the impcession that

they have no need foe the language othec than foe

communicating with wockecs. Eventually they may not be

motivated to leacn a language which is used to communicate

with secvants. Oe they may think that Xhosa-speakecs nevec

advance beyond these occupations. Because the teachec knows

that this is not the case and because he is awace that these

impcessions ace likely to be cceated in the minds of the

pupils, he

situations.

may avoid teaching these communication

If he intcoduces othec situations, it may be

idealistic since pupils ace not likely to need to

communicate in such situations. What is moce, that may

discoucage the pupils since they would be equipped with

communication skills that they would not be able to use foe

a long time.

A teachec who wants to oveccome this pcoblem of access may

wish to establish moce contact with the speakecs foe the

pupils. Howevee, the polacisation of the speakecs'

community and that of the pupils has cceated distcust and

feelings of insecucity which make it difficult foe the

teachec to put this into pcactice. Pacents, school

authocities and education depactments' officecs may be

celuctant to sanction visits to the speakecs' cesidential

aceas. Even if this wece possible, the question would still


184

remain as to whether the learners would be able to cope with

the varieties that the speakers use and which are different

from the standard variety taught at school.

The other problem in learning Xhosa as a second language is

that of the home environment. It is difficult for it to be

supportive to the pupils' learning processes, since most of

the pupils' parents do not speak Xhosa. Parents, though

they would like to be supportive of their children's

learning, consequently find themselves helpless in giving

support to the children. Discussing the effects of the home

environment on the learners' motivation in languagelearning, Botha says:

(a) In baie gevalle is dit ouers wat hulle kinders vanjongs af aanmoedig om die vreemde taal aan teleer. Dit geld ook vandag vir die aanleer vanXhosa. Ouers wat enigsins realisties dink,beklemtoon die voordele by hulle kinders. Aan dieander kant is daar ouers wat hulle negatiewehouding teenoor die sprekers van die taal en dietaal self, oordra op hulle kinders.

1977 1

TRANSLATION

In many cases it is the parents who encouragetheir children from an early age to learn aforeign language. This applies also to thelearning of Xhosa. Parents who are realistic atall, emphasise the benefits to their children. Onthe other hand there are parents who perpetuatetheir own negative attitudes towards the speakersof the language and the language itself towardstheir children.

This is possible, says Botha, because


185

(b) Die leerling kan nie beskou word as 'n verskynselwat in isolasie groot geword het nie ..• Hy hand-haaf 'n spesifieke beskouing teenoor vreemde talein die algemeen. Hiermee saam gaan ook sy houdingteenoor die sprekers van die vreemde taal." Beskouhy hulle as afsonderlike wesens, as mense wat niein sy omgewing tuishoort nie?

TRANSLATION

The pupil should not be seen as a phenomenon whogrew up in isolation .•• He harbours a specificview about foreign languages in general. Coupledwith this is his attitude towards the speakers ofa foreign language. Does he view them as separatecreatures, as people who do not belong to hisenvironment?

From this, it is clear that the home environment contributes

significantly also to the learners' attitudes towards the ~

target language and its speakers. In the case of second

language learners of Xhosa there are a number of factors

that inhibit the development of positive attitudes in the

learners' environment. This has an adverse effect on the

learners' motivation.

In the light of all these factors it is very difficult for a

second language learner of Xhosa to fit Krashen's

descri~tion of a good language learner. He describes a good

language learner as:

.•• an acquirer, who first of all is able toobtain sufficient intake in the second language,and second, has a low affective filter to enable


186

him to utilize this input fot" languageacquisition.

1981 37

Howevet", despite all these factot"s that inhibit leat"ning andacquisition, intet"est in leat"ning Xhosa is not waning andthe need to do so is becoming ut"gent. This places achallenge to the educatot"s, namely, the challenge tot"econcile this intet"est and this need with all those socialfactot"s that inhibit leat"ning.


187

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

5.1 Introduction

After a number of years of African languages teaching at

some universities in the United States of America, it was

realized that these programmes were not succeeding as much

as the universities would have liked them to. The major

reason for this, it was felt, was that there was not

sufficient planning before their introduction. Anotherimportant ceason was that African language instruction was

not sufficiently supported by the U.S. government (Wiley and

Dwyer 1980 1). There were other factors which the

directors of the various African Studies Centres and thelanguage programme co-ordinators felt needed to beaddressed, such as the need for co-operation among the

centres, the need to set clear and common objectives and the

need for collective effort in persuading the government to

take a keener interest in African language instruction.

Thus on November I, 1978, the Africanists concerned "met for

one day of discussion at the African Studies Association

Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland". A draft paper was

developed from these discussions entitled "African Languages

: Needs and Priorities". The discussions at this meeting

led to the holding of a conference on 10 to 11 March 1979 at


188

the Michigan State Univecsity Afcican Centce whose theme

was, Afcican Language Instcuction in the United States

Dicections and Pciocities. Among the majoc issues that

emecged out of this confecence and on which the confecees

ageeed, wece the questions of effective teaching matecial

and that of pecsonnel.

Thecefoce, the most ucgent need foe Afcicanstudies in the United States is foe suppoctto conduct basic linguistic ceseacch onAfcican languages and to pcoduce the neededinstcuctional mateciaIs, giving especialattention to new ceseacch on languageleacning and teaching

Foe the continuing Afcican languageinstcuction pcogcams, the highest pciocitiesace foe fellowships foe language aceastudies, foe ceseacch funds and stipends foeAfcican linguists to update theic knowledgeand conduct ociginal field ceseacch on thelanguages, and, only then, foe summec suppoctand leacning pcogcams.

Wiley and Dwyec 1980 2

The Amecican expecience is cited hece as an example of the

impoctance of the analysis of needs and the setting of

pciocities that should pcecede embacking on a pcogcamme

concecned with teaching a language to non-mothec tongue

leacnecs, eithec as a foceign oe second language. It has

been cited also because thece ace some pacallels between the

Amecican and the South Afcican expecience, which ace of

significance hece in the light of some of the obsecvations

expcessed in the pa~agcaphs below.


189

As has been mentioned in Chapter 3, the two major reasons

that served as a motive for the introduction of African

language studies

political control

We have seen that

in South African universities were:

and the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

with the passage of time, perspectives

c~anged resulting in the recognition of the importance of

African language studies for intergroup understanding and

peaceful coexistence. This change in perspectives

manifested itself in the introduction of African languages

at the White schools: in a steady growth of extra-mural

African language instruction activities: in the improvement

of tne oral skills component at the universities and in the

introduction of African Language Teaching Method at

universities and teacher training colleges. According to

Wiley and Dwyer, (1980 : 4) in the U.S., the instruction in

African languages was important also "for the humanistic

reasons of understanding and communicating with our fellow

man and for the promotion of peace".

Although the hurdles to be overcome were the same in both

the South African and the American situations such as lack

of suitable teaching material, lack of suitably qualified

personnel the prospects for success were brighter in South

Africa than in the u.S. The reason was that South Africa

had "the most valuable resource, namely mother-tongue

speakers" (Gxilishe 1987(b)). The question of whether the

American programme of instruction in African languages has


190

been successful oe not aftee the Michigan State Univeesity

Confeeence of Maech 1979 will not be addeessed heee. The

question that will be addeessed in the following paeageaphs

is whethee the teaching of Afeican languages to non-mothee-

tongue speakees has eealized the expected dividends. This

will be done by attempting to give an objective summaey of

how social factoes have placed, and ace still placing, heavy

consteaints on the teaching of Xhosa to non-mothee-tongue

speakees. The summaey is concluded by taking a beief look

at the peospects foe the future. This will be peesented in

the foem of eecommendations.

5.2 Summaey of the Consteaints

The expectations of a society with eegaed to what education

should do foe the leaenec eepeesent the aggeegate of what

each subject is expected to do foe the leaenee. The value

that a society attaches

that is attachedto education is a maceocosm of the

value to any subject that has

the cueeiculum.

beenconsideeed woethy of inclusion in Thepeesence of these expectations and the eecognition of this

value ace usually manifested in the amount of input that is

made to facilitate the peocess of leaening. The eight that

the leaenee has to have access to education is the eight to

the facilitation of his peocess of leaening. In giving a

summaey of the consteaints that have peevaded second-

language teaching and leaening of Xhosa as a eesult of


191

social factors, the question may be asked as to whether the

learner has not been denied his right of access to

meaningful education. If this is the case, then the

question is: "What are the implications thereof for the

national objectives that motivated the second-language

teaching and learning of Xhosa?"

In the light of what has been expressed in the preceding

three chapters, it becomes very difficult to feel that the

input that has been made has bee"n.cealisti.c enough as to be

able to facilitate the achievement of the stated objectives.

It becomes difficult also to feel that these stated

objectives are ac~ievable at all, because the reality of the

context within whiCh the learning and teaching of Xhosa take

place does not allow for this.

With regard to the teaching and learning of African

languages as tne pursuit for scientific knowledge, the

amount of academic material that has been put out theses,

journals, books, etc. and the number of scholars who have

become international figures, are proof that the exercise

has been useful and worthwhile. It is in the area of the

quest for acquisition of oral proficiency that the exercise

has been characterized by a conflict between the ends and

the means to achieve those ends. The history of the second-

language teaching and le~~~ing of Xhosa is the history of

attempts to resolve this conflict.


192

The vaeious syllabuses that have been used eeflect these

attempts. The move away feom geammae to communicative

competence, which is ceflected in the cuecent syllabuses,

eepeesents a vecy significant step in these attempts to

ceconci1e the means to the ends. But can it be said that

these syllabuses have bcought

pcinciple itself cectainly

conflict. Howevee, a closee

an end to the conflict? The

has potential to end this

look at these syllabuses

eeveals that theic potential to eliminate the conflict is

veey limited. Quite a number"~f sentences seem to suggest

that they ace litecal tcanslations feom English and

theeefoce sound like English spoken in Xhosa, so to speak.

Examples:

1. Unobutyala bokumondla

him)

2. Unobutyala bokuba undincede (You have an obligation to

help me)

(You have an obligation to feed

St. 20

3. Lumkela ukuba ungawi (Be caeeful you do not fall)

25

Apaet feom the fact that this may conceal the meaning foe a

native speakec who does not undecstand English, thece is

also the cisk that the speakec may convey the opposite of


193

what he intends to convey. Foe instance, in the above

examples the teanslations feom English have been so liteeal

that the oeiginal meanings ace lost completely. Examples 1

and 2 eespectively mean "You ace guilty of feeding him" and

"You ace guilty of helping me". Example 3 means "Be caeeful

in case you do not fall", that is "Make sure that you fall".

This tendency to use dictionaey language unfoetunately finds

its way into the Matcic of the Cape Senioc Ceetificate

exteenal final examination qu~stion papecs •. One question in

the Novembee 1987 Xhosa H.G. (Fiest Papee) was:

Waneie yintoni kwitelevizhini? Bhala le nto unike nezizathu.

(What ace you satisfied with on television? Weite about it

and give youe eeasons).

But to a mothee-tongue speakee of Xhosa the sentence means:

"What have you had enough of on television?"

The implication of this is that inteeaction with mothee-

tongue speakees may be hindeeed. This is moee likely also

because, although the syllabus is intended to appeoximate

veey closely eeal-life communication situations, adheeence

to the standaed vaeiety has been veey steictly obseeved.

The syllabuses also seem to have been designed with the

teachee and the examination in mind. Language to be used

within any given concept is indicated in the foem of


194

sentences and/oc phcases. In the teaching matecial that. has

been compiled in accocdance with these syllabuses, these ace

extended by using them in cectain situations and by

pcoviding exercises based on them. These execcises focm the

basis of examination questions. Thus the leacnec's and the

teachec's vecsatility in the language does not become a

ccucial factoc in the attainment of success in examination.

Dcills in accocdance with these execcises ensuce the success

of the leacnec in the examination and also make the task of

the undecpcepaced teacher less bucdensome than it had been

when the pcevious syllabuses wece still in use.

Anothec featuce of these syllabuses that is significant in

this conflict between the ends and means is the distcibution

of macks in the vacious components. In Standacd 8 only 15%

of the total mack is allotted to ocal pcoficiency in the

Highec Gcade and 20% in the Standacd Gcade. In Standacd 10

ocal pcoficiency accounts foc only 15% of the total mack in

the Highec Gcade and 13% in the Standacd Gcade. This

cepcesents a contcadiction since the natuce of these

syllabuses cepcesents a cecognition of the impoctance of

communicative competence in Xhosa. Howevec, in the light of

the context within which t~ese syllabuses opecate, this

contcadiction is pcedictable. Although this has been

questioned foc

linguists (e.g.

quite a long time by teachecs and applied

Endly 1983 and Gxilishe (1986(a)), it is

doubtful whethec allotting equal oc moce macks to ocal would


195

not ~esult in mo~e f~ustration fo~ both the teache~ and the

learner. This is so because teache~s whose own

communicative competence is weak would not be able to stand

up to the demands of such an ar~angement.

F~om what has been said in the p~evious chapte~, it is clear

that the souece of this conflict lies not with the syllabus

designer no~ the teacher nor the lea~ne~s. The cause of

chis conflict is ~ooted in the ve~y manner in which the

South African society is st~ucturedo As Poulos says:

••• the veey nature of oue society, in whichceetain communities are isolated feom one anothe~,hampe~s the mutual lea~ning process of languagesa p~ocess which is most effectively achieved in anatu~al way, by constant inte~action betweenspeake~s of diffeeent language communities.Non-motivation coupled with isolation ace pe~hapstwo of the majo~ counter-fo~ces to any successfullanguage learning peocess, and both these fo~cesare evident in the White society.

1986 9

We have seen that when the end in a language teaching

p~og~amme is communicative competence, the best means is

exposu~e to the ta~get language. Thus any language

p~og~amme that ope~ates within a socio-political context

that is opposed to social integ~ation, is unlikely to

achieve its objectives. This is so because in such a socio-

political context all those facto~s that p~omote integ~ative

motivation a~e not operative. The context is conducive to

the sustenance of all the inhibiting factors. The collective


196

effect of these inhibiting factocs is that the second

language leacnec of Xhosa is denied his cight to have access

to effective education. Again hece thece is a cleaccontcadiction. Reseacch findings, the inccease in the

that offec Xhosa, and opinionsnumbec of White schools

expcessed thcough the media, have shown that Whitecommunities ace positively disposed to the leacning and

teaching of Afcican languages. Howevec, theic commitment to

the elimination of those social factocs that inhibit

effective teaching and leacning does not match theic stated

awaceness of the need to acquice communicative competence in

these languages. Evidence fcom the socio-political histocy

of South Afcica pcoves that the' context within which the

teaching and leacning of Afcican languages occucs and which

allows foc the inhibiting socio-political factocs, has the

appcoval of White society.

This means that intecvention stcategies that ace devised to

deal with the task of effective teaching and leacning of

Afcican languages should come out of the input of both the

membecs of society outside the institutions of leacning and

those who ace inside these i~stitutions, that is, educatocs

and leacnecs.


197

5.3 Possible Inte~vention St~ategies

Although we have suggested above that the task of devising

inte~vention st~ategies should be engaged in f~om two

planes, the success of the exe~cise will depend very la~gely

on the extent to which the g~oups involved consult. It is

the contention in this disse~tation that in the teaching of

Xhosa as a second language, the methodologies employed are

not at issue. The issue is the ~econciliation of such

methodologies on

they are employed

the one hand with the context within which

and, on the other, with the stated

objectives of undertaking a language teaching p~ogramme.

For our purposes here, we shall divide the society outside

the institutions of learning into: (a) government, and (b)

the parents.

5.3.1 Institutions of Learning

As stated above, those actively involved in second-language

teaching of Xhosa no doubt have access to all the best

literature available on foreign and second-language teaching

methodologies. However, it is clear that the success of

these methodologies has been inhibited by social factors

which, while they also need urgent attention, are not likely

to be eliminated over a short period of time, especially in

the light of the points raised in the next paragraph


198

(pacagcaph 5.3.2). What can the language pcactitionecs do

in the meantime to deal with the task of effective teaching

and leacning? It seems that an appcopciate point of

depactuce would be foe language pcactitionecs to ask, and

answec fcankly and objectively, the question: "Aftee somany yeacs, has the execcise we ace involved in succeeded in

satisfying the needs of the society?" If, foe the ceasons

outlined in the pcevious chaptec, the answec to this

question is cecognized to be an unequivocable "No", thatwill lead to fucthec questions and actions. Such actions

would have to be divided into those that can be undectaken

by the pcactitionecs as a gcoup and those that they can

undectake as individuals at theic cespective institutions.

Alceady in South Afcica thece exist a number of

organizations that ace concerned with language study, such

as the Afcican Languages Association of South Afcica, South

Afcican Applied Linguistics Association and others. A look

into the activities of these stcuctures ceveals that, in

celation to English and Afrikaans, not much attention has

been paid to the pcoblems that have pecvaded the second-

language teaching of Afcican languages. Even in such

journals as the Joucnalof Afcican Languages, its foce-

cunnec Limi, and Afcican Studies, which deal with African

languages, one hacdly comes across an article that addresses

this issue. On the othec hand, it is a view in this wock

that stcuctuces like these can be used effectively to


199

influence the gove~nment to unde~take to ~emove o~ ~elax. the

~est~ictions that hinde~ the effective second-language

teaching of Af~ican languages. One of these ~est~ictions is

the one that p~ohibits the employment of mothe~-tongue

speake~s as teache~s of Af~ican languages in the White

schools. Closely ~elated to this ~est~iction is the one

which p~events an individual teache~ inviting mothe~-tongue

speake~s to assist in classroom activities.

The Black universities and teache~ t~aining colleges should

also be influenced by these o~ganizations to int~oduce

Second Language Teaching Method of African languages, so

that mothe~-tongue sgeake~s a~e available who a~e qualified

to teach these languages as second languages. This is even

mo~e urgent now against the backg~ound of the cu~~ent

thinking which suggests that Af~ican languages should be

compul50~y at the White schools and that these schools

should open their gates to lea~ne~s of all ~aces.

The language study o~ganizations owe it to the lea~ne~s and

the society in gene~al to sensitize them and the gove~nment

autho~ities to the need fo~ ~eo~ientating attitudes and

pe~spectives with cega~d to the ~ole of Af~ican languages in

the futu~e of human ~elations in the count~y. On the

question of language p~actitione~s' obligation to add~ess

the issue of a community's language needs, Rubin (1984)

conside~s the following questions impo~tant:


200

What language/communication inadequacies have beenidentified, and by whom?

What plans or goals have been set out to attend tothe communication inadequacies identified?

Who are the plannerspower to make anddecisions?

who have the authority andinfluence language-related

Language practitioners, through their organizations, can

address these questions by demanding more involvement in the

government structures concerned with language education

planning and by embarking on programmes of identifying the

inadequacies of steps followed to solve the communication

problem. Weinstein summarizes this obligation very

explicitly when he says:

••• although government bodies are usually themajor agents of language planning, private orsemiprivate specialized organizations and groupsof writers, printers and other communicationspecialists play an essential role too, with orwithout government approval.

1984 233

The private sector is known to have given support to the

second-language teaching of English, for instance. There

can be no reason to doubt that they would be supportive to

programmes intended to achieve effective second-language

teaching and learning of African languages. It is for the

language practitioners to convince them (the private sector)

satisfactorily of the need to do so. This could be done,

inter alia, by making bursaries available to prospective


201

teachers of African languages, and by giving fInancial

support to projects involving production of suitable

teaching material and to sociolinguistic or applied

linguistic researchers whose findings are intended to

improve the quality of teaching of African languages.

From the views expressed, in discussions and through answers

to questionnaires, by second-language teachers of Xhosa in

the Cape Peninsula on working relations with tertiary

institutions, it is clear that language practitioners need

to attend to the question of more interaction and co-

ordination between these institutions and the schools.

The place of non-standard varieties in language education

can be ignored only at the risk of failing to achieve the

set objectives. Therefore it is necessary that the effects

of language conservationism on the learner's efforts to

acquire communicative competence should be taken cognizance

of. At the time of writing this dissertation the

Sociolinguistic Section of the Human Sciences Research

Council was planning a project involving research into the

influence of non-standard varieties on the standard

varieties of the various African languages. According to

the head of this section, Dr G.K.S. Schuring, it is hoped

that the findings of this research will influence the

attitudes of language educators and language authorities

towards the non-standard varieties (personal communication).


202

Although the research will focus on the effects of non-

standard varieties on first-language teaching and learning

of African languages, its findings will also benefit second-

language teaching and learning.

Since it is not likely to be easy for the existing

organizations to break with their traditions, which seem to

have been those of associating second-language teaching and

learning with the teaching and learning of the official

languages, it may even be necessary to establish an

organization that is concerned only with the second-language

teaching and learning of African languages. Current

activities seem to suggest very strong concern with the

state of the official languages, especially English, at the

Black schools. This is not matched by any concern for Black

languages in White institutions. Yet it is more critical

than the state of official languages in Black institutions.

It is a misconception to think that Black learners are more

linguistically disadvantaged than their White counterparts.

The reverse is true.

The role of culture in language and literature is recognized

by all involved in language education. We saw in the

preceding chapters how appreciation of a geople's culture

may yield positive attitudes towards their language through

which that culture is expressed. Thus building in a culture

component into a second-language teaching and learning


203

~cogcamme can contribute to the develo~ment of ~ositive

attitudes, not only towacds the target language, but also

towacds its s~eakecs. Language ~cactitioners need to~

considec the need to reorientate peo~le's attitudes and

~ers~ectives with regard to cultuce. However, care needs to

be taken not to ~cesent African culture as if it is immune

to social dynamics, foe that may defeat the ends of the

task. An exam~le of this is an undated article ~ut out by

the Ca~e Education Department entitled: "African Culture and

Customs". rt is doubtful that an article that ~resents

Xhosa culture as this one, can succeed in influencing the

development of positive attitudes towards Xhosa and its

speakecs. On the contrary, leacners may see the Xhosa as a

backwacd peo~le who are not worth intecacting with. These

are some of the things said in the article.

(1) About childeen

The bicth of a child is an auspicious occasion.It is announced with joy. There is much chantingand praying. The woman stays in seclusion forabout thcee months after giving birth.

(2) Naming children

This happens o~ the eventful day the baby ap~earsfoe the ficst time with its mother after 3 monthsseclusion. The baby is held at the fire andmoved thcough the smoke, while it is ~raised andthe dangees of the life ahead ace told.


204

(3) About initiation schools

Once the wounds are healed the initiates goroaming for food in the veld or they steal as longas they are not caught.

(4) About death

It is customary to bury the corpse with all thepersonal belongings of the deceased, becauseshould they fall into the hands of a sorcerer theycould well be used for malevolent purposes.

Also cultural understanding should be aimed for as a tool to

narrow the social distance and not to maintain or widen it.

The following, for example, from the same article can only

give learners the idea that Xhosas are a child community

which needs parental treatment from the members of the White

community.

When working fo~ a long time they expect to getgifts, maybe a chair in some cases. If nothing isgiven they feel it is their right to take somesugar, tea, soap or whatever article they are inneed of. Many of them see us as their mothers orfathers and they tell us so. This is, in fact, soand we must be proud to be given such a title orwhen our advice is asked. They want to be led andexpect leadership from us. When there is notenough leadership or discipline we are regarded asweak. Also if we as Whites give in to every whimof theirs. "No", must stay "no" and strict orderis appreciated.

The above shows how necessary it is for language

practitioners to revisit the reasons for the inclusion of a


205

culture component in a language teaching and learning

programme.

One of the explanations given by teachers in the Cape

Peninsula for the big drop in the numbers of pupils who

continue with Xhosa is that Xhosa is grouped with subjects

which are regarded by the pupils as more functional than

Xhosa. Thus pupils choose subjects which they believe will

be more useful to them than Xhosa. This reflects the

pupils' awareness of the low status of Xhosa as well as

their ignorance of the value of communicative competence in

the language. This grouping can be changed if language

practitioners make a joint effort to influerice the education

authorities. Moreover, more awareness of the value of

competence in Xhosa on the part of the learners and the

adult community can result in more learners continuing with

the language after primary school.

The efforts of the language study organization can then help

facilitate the task of the individual teacher in dealing

with the effects of social factors on second language

teaching and learning of Xhosa. Gxilishe recommends that:

••• effortsbetween theschools

be made to establish someXhosa-speaking community

contactand the

1987(a) 190


206

The individual teacher can achieve this by taking advantage

of whatever goodwill there still is between the Black and

White communities by arranging visits by pupils to local

Black schools and vice versa. Discussions with teachers in

the Cape

that all

Peninsula and answers to a questionnaire revealed

those teachers interviewed have no working

relationship with their counterparts in the Black townships

although all of them would like to establish contact with

Black schools. They would like to have Black pupils come to

their scnools. Visits to Black townships by White pupils

seem to be out of the question. Teachers are, however,

ready to organize trips to the Ciskei and Transkei, which

are more costly than frequent trips to nearby townships.

Altnough it is clear that the reason for this anomaly is the

question of

this thesis

uncertainty about

that there is more

security, it is the view of

goodwill between Black and

White youth now than there has ever been before. Such

visits would break some of the pupils' anxieties and result

in integrative motivation. This would enable the learners

to have access even to those non-standard varieties that are

in use in their neighbourhood and this would result in

improved versatility in the language. Integratively

motivated learners would make it easy for the individual

teacher to educate the community about the value of

communicative competence in Xhosa and the importance of

positive attitudes in the attainment of such competence.


207

It is not possible to exhaust all possible intervention

strategies that language practitioners can devise to tackle

the problems that are inhibiting effective second-language

teaching and learning of African languages. However,

whatever the strategies are, it should be noted that their

success will depend largely on the elimination of all those

factors that lead to communication deficiencies. For as

Weinstein (1984) puts it:

communicatiqn problems are themselves theresult of non-lingtiistic socia-economic orpolitical changes.

5.3.2. Society Outside Learning Institutions

It should be clear from the preceding paragraphs how the

government authorities and the public can int~rvene in the

fight to eliminate the social factors that are inhibiting

the success of the second language teaching and learning of

African languages.

As far as the public are concerned their contribution would

be very significant if they were to undertake to work

towards the creation of an environment which will be

supportive to the learning of African languages. The family

would be the best point of departure since the individual

families are the constituent elements of society. We saw in

Chapter 4 how effective the home environments are in shaping


208

the lea~ne~s' attitudes towa~ds the ta~get language and its

speake~s.

Many met~opolitan a~eas today have ~ numbe~ of ext~a-mu~al

adult cent~es whe~e Af~ican languages a~e taught along with

othe~ subjects. Pa~ents need to be encou~aged to en~ol at

these cent~es and lea~n these languages. This would

motivate the pupils and also enable the pa~ents to give

suppo~t to thei~ child~en. What is mo~e, this would

eventually ~esult in a ~eo~ientation of pe~spectives and

attitudes in the lea~ne~s' communities. The impo~tance of

such a situation fo~ the individual lea~ne~ is summa~ized by

Doughty as follows:

Whateve~ "society" and "language" may actually be,ou~ unde~standing of social and linguistic ~ealitymakes us ~eadily awa~e that both of them act uponthe life of eve~y individual in ways which aredecisive and inescapable.

1972 83

The socio-political developments in South Africa today

suggest that there is no unanimity on the necessary steps to

be taken in orde~ to c~eate a society in which the

inhibiting social facto~s mentioned in the previous chapter

will cease to be a problem. The~e is, however, consensus on

the importance of communication in healthy human ~elations.

It is not within the scope of this wo~k to deal with the

manne~ in which those in the government should deal with the


209

task of creating a socio-political environment that will

promote integrative motivation to acquire communicative

competence in African languages. However, it is the view in

this thesis that, while the debates are still going on as to

how best the South African society should be structured,

there are certain decisions which could be taken and

implemented as a matter of urgency. These would serve as a

short-term part-contribution by the government to the task

of devising workable intervention strategies to deal with

the communication problems. As has been indicated earlier,

the following seem to constitute the minimum contribution

tne government should seriously consider making:

The opening of White schools to teachers who are

mother-tongue speakers and who are adequately qualified

Making funds available for financing research projects

that are concerned with the production of suitable

teaching material and with the collection of useful

information such as has been mentioned in Chapter 2

Making bursaries available for students who display

potential for, and interest in, being second-language

teachers of African languages

Allowing individual schools to invite mother-tongue

speakers to assist in classroom activities whenever the


210

need arises, without having to go through bureaucratic

procedures

Encouraging, and even organizing, closer working

relations with locól Black schools where these

languages are taught

The government authorities need to respond quickly and

positively to the needs of the society, which, in a number

of researches, has been found to be positively disposed to

the learning of African languages. The history of the

teaching of Xhosa at the White schools reveals that some

individuals have, in the last ten years, given almost all'of

their time and energy to the cause of second-language

teaching and learning of Xhosa. It will be a sad day if it

has to be publicly admitted that these efforts have not been

rewarded with success because of the intricate and

contradictory connection between the stated objectives of

second language teaching and learning of African languages

and the expressed desires of the White community on the one

hand, and the historical and socio-political reality in

South Africa on the other.


211

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AITCHISON, J. 1981: _L_a_n~g~u~a~g~e~C~h~a~n~g~e~~~P~~~o~g~~~e_s_s__o~~~_d_e_c_a~y,Fontana, London.

AKERE, F. 1978 "Socio-cultu~al Const~aints and theEmergence of a Standard Nige~ian English." InAnthropological Linguistics, Vol. 20, No.9. 407-421.

BELL, R.T. 1981: An Introduction to Applied Linguistics,Batsford, London.

BERNSTEIN B. 1982 "Social Class, Language andSocialization." In Giglioli, P.P. (ed.) Language andSocial Context, Penguin, New York. 157-178.

BLOUNT, B.G. and SANCHES, M. 1977 : Sociocultural Dimensionsof Language Change, Academic Press, New York.

BLOOMFIELD, L. 1961: Language, George Allen and Unwin,London.BOAS, F. 1964: "Linguistics and Ethnology." In Hymes, D.

(Ed.) Language in Cultu~e and Society, Harper and Row,New York. 15-26.

BOTHA, J.J. 1979 : Verslag oor stand van onderwyse~opleidingt.o.V. Xhosa, Stellenbosch.

BOTHA, J.J. 1986: "Motivering by die onderrig van Xhosa."Pape~ ~ead at a Xhosa in-service course, Septembe~1986, Cape Town.

BOURHIS, R.Y. 1982 "Language policies and languageattitudes Le monde de la Francophonie." In Ryan, E.B.and Giles, H. (Eds.) Attitudes Towards LanguageVariation, Edward Arnold, London.

BOURHIS, R.Y. and GILES, H. 1977 "The Language ofInterg~oup Relations." in Giles, H. (Ed.) Language,Ethnicity and Inte~g~oup Relations, Academic P~ess,London. 119-135.

BOYCE, W.B. 1838 A G~ammar of the Kaffir Language,Wesleyan Mission Society.

BRIGHT, W. 1971: "The Dimensions of Sociolinguistics."Int~oduction, in Bright, W. (Ed.) Sociolinguistics.P~oceedings of the UCLA Sociolinguistics Confe~ence,1964, Mouton, The Hague. 12-15.

BURLING, R. 1970: Man's Many Voices, Language in itsCultural Context, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New Yo~k.


212

CAPE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT164 and 167 of 1975.

Circular Letters Numbers 105,

CARRANZA, M.A. 1982: "Attitudinal research on HispaniElanguage vaeieties." In Ryan, E.B. and Giles, H. (Eds.)Attitudes Towards Language Variation, Edw'aed Aenolds.63-83.

CARSON, D. 1985 : The Lexical Bar, peegamon, Oxford.

CHICK, K. and SENEQUE, M. 1986 : "The Role of the AppliedLinguist in Language Planning The Medium ofInstruction Problem in Kwazulu/Natal." Paper eead atthe 5th Annual Conference of the South Afeican AppliedLinguistics Association, University of Cape Town.

CHICK, K. 1984: "Interactional Sociolinguistics, Insightsand Applications." In Webb, V.N. (Ed.) Conferencepapers of the 20th National Confeeence of theLinguistic Society of Southeen Africa, Univeesity ofPretoria.

CHOMSKY, N. 1965 Aspects of the Theory of SYntax, M.I.T.Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

DAY, R.R. 1982: "Children's attitudes toward language." InRyan, E.B. and Giles, H. (Eds.) Attitudes TowardsLanguage Vaeiation, Edwaed Aenolds, London. 116-131.

DE JAGER C.J. 1977 : "Bantoetale en Moderne Vreemdetale-onderrig : Funksionele Veeslag." Pape~ read at theVyfde Nasionale Konferensie van die S.A. Studiegroepvie Taalonderrig. Bloemfontein, 11-14 Julie 1977~

DITTMAR, N. 1976: Sociolinguistics - A Critical Suevey ofTheory and Application, Holt, Rinehaet and Winston, NewYork.

DORIAN, N. 1982: "Defining the speech community to includeit.s working maegins." In Romaine, S. (Ed.)Sociolinguistic Vaeiation in Speech Communitie, EdwardArnold, London. 25-33.

DOUGHTY, P., PEARCE, J. and THORNTON. G. 1972Language, Edward Arnold, London.

Exploring

DOUGHTY, P. AND THORNTON, G. 1973 Language study, theteacher and the leaener, Edward Aenold, London.

DOWNES, W. 1984 : Language and Society, Fontana, London.

DU PLESSIS, J.A., FORD, M.E.I. and MALINGA, R.M.M. 1983Isixhosa Ibanga Le - 10, Opdiovista, Goodwood.


EDWARDS, J.R. 1979 : "Judgements and confidence in reactionsto disadvantaged speech." In Giles, H. and St. Clair,R.N. (Eds.) Language and Social Psychology, BasilBlackwell, Oxfocd. 22-44.

EDWARDS, J.R. 1982 "Language attitudes and theirimplications among English speakers." In Ryan, E.B. andGiles, H. (Eds.) Attitudes Towards Language Variation.20-33.

EDWARDS, J.R. 1985: Language, Society and Identity, BasilBlackwell, London.

EDWARDS, J.R. and GILES, H. 1984 "Applications of theSocial Psychology of Language : Sociolinguistics andEducation." In Trudgill, P. (Ed.) AppliedSociolinguistics, Academic Press, London. 119-158.

ELIOT, G. 1980: The Millon the Floss, Clarendon Press,Oxford.

ENDLEY, R.W. 1983: "The Teaching of Isixhosa for Whites inSecondary Schools." Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Universityof Port Elizabeth.

FERGUSON, C.A. 1971: "NationalFormulas." In Bright, W.Mouton, The Hague. 309-324.

Sociolinguistics Profile(Ed.) Sociolinguistics,

FERGUSON, C.A. 1982: "Diglossia." In Giglioli,Language and Social Context, Penguin, New251.

P.P. (Ed.)York. 232-

FILL, C. 1979:P "A grammarian looks to sociolinguistics."In Pride, B.J. (Ed.) Sociolinguistic Aspects ofLanguage, Learning and Teaching, Oxford UniversityPress.

FISHMAN, J.A. 1971 Sociolinguistics A BriefIntroduction, Newbury House, Rawley, Massachusetts.

FISHMAN, J.A. 1972 Language in Sociocultural Change,Stanford University Press, Stanford.

FIVAS, D. 1974 : Towards explanation in African linguistics,Inaugural lecture, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

FORD, M.E.I. 1980 "African culture and custom."Information sheet written on behalf of the Xhosa StudyCommittee and circulated in the schools by CapeEducation Department.

GAL, S. 1979: Language Shift Social Determinant ofLinguistic Change in Bilingual Austria, Academic Press,New York.

213


-- ----. ----,

214

GARDNER, R.C. 1979 : ~Social Psychological Aspects of SecondLanguage Acquisition.~ In Giles, H. and St. Clair, R.N.(Eds.) Language and Social Psychology, Basil Blackwell,Oxford.

GARDNER, R.C. 1982 "Lanqu aqe attitudes and languagelearning.~ In Ryan, ~.B. and Giles, H. (Eds.) AttitudesTowards Language Variation, Edward Arnold, London. 132-147.

GIGLIOLI, P.P. 1972 : Language and Social Context,New York.

Penguin,

GILES, H., BOURHIS, R.Y. and TAYLOR, O.M. 1977 : ~Towards aTheory of Language in Ethnic Group Relations." InGiles, H. (Ed.) Language, Ethnicity and IntergroupRelations, Academic Press, London. 307-348.

GILES, H. and SMITH, p.m. 1979 : ~Accommodation Theory:Optimal Levels of Convergence.~ In Giles, H. and St.Clair, R.N. (Eds.) Language and Social Psychology,Basil Blackwell, London. 45-65.

GILES, H •. and RYAN, E.B. 1982 : ~Prolegomena for ~evelopinga social psychological theory of language attitudes.~In Ryan, E.B. and Giles, H. (Eds.) Attitudes Towards~L~a~n~g~u~a~g~e~V~a~r~i~a~t~i~o~n~,Edward Arnold, London. 208-223.

GIRARD D. 1986: ~The Eclectic Way.~ In English TeachingForum, Vol. XXIV, No.3, July 1986. (A journal for theteacher of English outside the U.S.). 11-14.

GUMPERZ, J.J. 1972: ~Introduction.~ In Gumperz, J.J. andHymes, D. (Eds.) Directions in Sociolinguistics: TheEthnography of Communication, Hold, Rinehart andWinston, New York. 1-25.

GUMPERZ, J.J. 1982: ~The Speech Community.~ In Giglioli,P.P. (Ed.) Language and Social Context, Penguin, NewYork. 219-231.

GXILISHE, D.S. 1987a : Oral Proficiency in Xhosa as a SecondLanguage. D. Lit. Thesis, Stellenbosch.

GXILISHE, D.S. 1987b: ~The Contribution of Exposure to theLanguage Process : With Reference to Xhosa as a SecondLanguage.~ Paper read at the University of Cape Town.

HADDON, A.C. 1906 Presidential Address, Cape Town,Wednesday August 16 1905.~ In ~Report of the SeventyFifth Meeting of the British Association for theAdvancement of Science, South Africa August andSeptember 1905, Section H, Anthropology.~ John Murray,London •.5l1-527.


215

HALLIDAY, M.A.K. 1978: Language as Social Semiotic: thesocial interpretation of language and meaning, EdwardArnold, London.

HALLIDAY, M.A.K., McINTOSH, A. and STREVENS, P. 1964 : TheLinguistic Sciences and Language Teaching, Longman,London.

HAUPTFLEISCH,Volume 1of whiteVolume 2language

T. 1977: Language Loyalty in South Africa.Bilingual Policy in South Africa - Opinions

adults in urban areas.Using and improving usage in the secondsome opinions of white adults in urban

areas.Volume 3 Motivations to language use : opinions andattitudes of white adults in urban areas.Volume 4 : Language maintenance, language purity andlanguage shift.

HERMAN, S.R. 1972: "Explorations in the Social Psychologyof Language Choice." In Fishman, J.A. (Ed.) Readings inthe Sociology of Language, Mouton, The Hague, 492-511.

HERTZLER, J.O. 1965 : A Sociology of Language, Random House,New York.

HUDSON, R.A. 1982Press, London.

Sociolinguistics, Cambridge University

HUDSON, K. 1983: The Language of Teenage Revolution TheDictionary Defeated, MacMillan, Hong Kong.

HYMES, D. 1964 : "Introduction." In Hymes, D. (Ed.) Languagein Culture and Society : A Reader in Linguistics andAnthropology, Harper and Row, New York. 3-14.

JACKSON, G. 1981: Soledad Brother : The Prison Letters ofGeorge Jackson, Penguin, New York.

KLEIN, w. 1986 Second Language Acquisition, CambridgeUniversity Press, New York.

KRASHEN, S.D. 1981: Second Language Acquisition and SecondLanguage Learning, Pergamon, Oxford.

KRUGER, W.J. 1975 Die BantoesosiolinguistiekNoodsaaklike Komponent vir Bantoetaalstudie in

InSuid-

Afrika, Inaugural lecture, University ofElizabeth, Port Elizabeth.

Port

LABOV, W. 1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns, University ofPennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.


216

LABOV, W. 1982: "Building on Empirical Foundations." InLehmann, W.P. and Malkiel, Y. (Eds.) Perspectives onHistorical Linguisties, John Benjamins, Amsterdam. 17-92.

LAMBERT, W.E., GARDNER, R.C., OLTMAN, R and TUNSTALL, K.1972 "A Study of the Roles of Attitudes andMotivation in Second Language Learning." In Fishman,J.A. (Ed.) Readings in tne Sociology of Language,Mouton, The Hague. 473-491.

LAMBERT, W.E., HODGSON, R.C. GARDNER, R.C. and FILLENBAUM,S. 1960 "Evaluational Readings to Spoken Languages."In Journal of Social Psychology, American PsychologicalAssociation, Inc., Washington, D.C.

LANGACKER, R.W. 1973 : Language and its Structure, Harcourt,New York.

LEHMANN, W.P.HistoricalAustin.

and MALKIEL, Y. 1971Linguistics, University

Directions forof Texas Press,

LEVY, L. 1971 "History of the School of African Studies,University of Cape Town." Paper written incommemoration of the 50th anniversary of the school.

LOSEV, A. 1977 "The Specific Features ofSign." In Social Sciences, USSR AcademyVol. VIII, No. 44. Moscow. 109-121.

the Languageof Sciences,

MALCOLM, X. 1964New York.

Autobiography of Malcolm X, Grove Press,

MALINOWSKI, B. 1964 "The DilemmaLinguistics." In Hymes, D. (Ed.) Aand Society. A Reader in LinguisticsHarper and Row, New York. 63-65.

of ContemporaryReader in Cultureand Anthropology.

MILROY, L. 1980 Language and Social Networks, BasilBlackwell, Oxford.

MQHAYI, S.E.K. 1975Press, Alice.

"UMqhayi waseNtabozuko", Lovedale

MUNBY, L. 1978 Communicative Syllabus Design, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

NADER, L. 1972 "A note of Attitudes and the use ofLanguage." In Fishman, J.A. (Ed.) Readings in the~ociology of Language, Mouton, The Hague. 276-281.


NICHOLS, P.C. 1984: "Networks and Hierarchies: Languageand Social Stratification." In Kamare, C., Schulz, M.and O'Bair, W.M. (Eds.) Language and Power, Sage,London. 23-42.

NOKANENG, M.B. 1986 "The Methodology of AfricanLanguages." In The role of language in Black education,HSRC Education Research Programme, No.6, Pretoria.175-196.

NORTON, W.A. 1921: "African Life and Language." InauguralLecture, University of Cape Town.

OHANNESSIAN, S. and ANSRE, G. 1979 "Some reflections onthe educational use of sociolinguistic surveys." InPride, J.E. (Ed.) Sociolinguistic Aspects of LanguageLearning and Teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford.57-70.

POULOS, G. 1986 "The Study of African LanguagesMisconceptions within a society." Inaugural Lecture,University of South Africa, Pretoria.

PRINSLOO, K.P. 1978: "Institutions presently conductingresearch and inquiry in the field of language in SouthAfrica." In Lanham, L.W. and Prinsloo, K.P. (Eds.)Lariguage and Communication Studies in South Africa,Oxford University Press, Cape Town. 53-66.

RAY, P.S. 1972 : "Language Standardization." In Fishman, J.A(Ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Language, Mouton,The Hague. 754-765.

ROBINS, R.H. 1979 : A Short History of Linguistics, Longman,London.

ROMAINE, S. 1982 : "What is a speech community?" In Romaine,S. (Ed.) Sociolinguistic Variation in SpeechCommunities, Edward Arnold, London. 13-24.

RUBIN, J. 1977: "New Insights into the Nature of LanguageChange Offered by Language Planning." In Blount, B.G.and Sanches, M. (Eds.) Sociocultural Dimensions ofLanguage Change, Academic Press, New York. 253-269.

RUBIN, J. 1984 : "Planning for Language Change in the· UnitedStates: The Case of Monolingual Spanish Speakers." InKramaee, C., Schulz, M. and O'Bair, W. (Eds.) Languageand Powee, Sage, London. 154-175.

RUSSELL, J. 1982: "Networks and sociolinguistic variationin an Afeican urban setting." In Romaine, S. (Ed.)Sociolinguistic Vaeiations in Speech Communities,Edwaed Aenold, London. 125-140.

217


218

RYAN, E. B. 1979: "vJhy do Low-Pres tige Language Vari et iesPersist?" In Giles, H. and St. Clair, R.N. (Eds.)-:-L_a_n.....go:;-u_a---"g_e-;-::;-;a:-n_d;-;::-::;-_S_o.;._c..;__i_a_l;.__P__;_s....y.....;c;..;,h.:...o:.....:;:.l..:.,0..i/.g.A.Y, Bas i1 B1ackwell,London. 145-157.

SCHUMANN, J .H. 1978: "Social and Psychological Factors inSecond Language Acquisition." In Richards, J.R. (Ed.)Understanding Second and Foreign Language LearningIssues and Approaches, Newbury House Publishers,Rawley.

SCHURING, G.R. 1979: Kosmopolitiese omganstaleoorsprong en fanksies van Pretoria-Sotho

Die aard,en ander

koine-tale, RGN Verslag Soling-7, Pretoria.SCHURING, G.R. 1979: A Multilingual Society : English and

Afrikaans amongst Blacks in the R.S.A., HSRC, Pretoria.SCHURING, G.R. and YZEL, M.K. 1983: In Andersoek na die

taalsituasie in die Suid-Afrikaanse swart gemeenskapIn neeltalige samelewing, RGN, Pretoria.

SMUTS, J.and

1983: A Triangle of Forces : Language, ReligionPolitics, Inaugural talk, Rhodes University,

Grahamstown.ST. CLAIR, R.N. 1980 : "The Context of Language." In St.

Clair, R.N. and Giles, H. (Eds.) The Social and_P_s.-!y.....c_h~o_l_o...g~i_c_a--:-l-=-C~o~n=-t_e_x_t__ o_f_L_a_n_g",--u_a...g~e, La wr en ceEr 1ba urn,New Jersey. 11-18.

ST. CLAIR, R.N. 1982 ""From social historyattitudes." In Attitudes Towards LanguageEdward Arnold, London. 164-174.

to languageVariation,

STEWART, J. 1906 : Xhosa Phrase Book, Lovedale.

TRUDGI LL, P. 1984Press, London.

Applied Sociolinguistics, Academic

STEWART, W.A. 1968 "A Sociolinguistic Typology forDescribing National Multilingualism." In Fishman, J.A.(Ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Language, Mouton,The Hague. 531-545.

TAYLOR, O.M., MAYNARD, R. and RHEAULT, E. 1977 : "Threat toEthnic Identity and Second-Language Learning." InGiles, H. (Ed.) Language Ethnicity and IntergroupRelations, Academic Press, 99-117.

TRUDGILL, P. 1974: Sociolinguistics An Introduction,Penguin, Harmonds-w-o-r~t~h-.~~:""':;:'~~~-~_""';~-""';_~~-""';_:""':;:'~


219

VON STADEN, P.M.S. 1986 Afrikatale in blanke primereskole, RGN onderwysnavorsing program No.7, Pretoria.

WALKER, A. 1984 "Applied Sociology of LanguageVernacular Languages and Education." In Trudgi11, P.(Ed.) Applied Sociolinguistics, Academic Press, London.195-202.

WALKER, E.A. 1929 The South African College and the~u~n_i~v~e~r~s~i~t~y~o~f__~C~a~p~e~T~o~w~n~,University of Cape Town, CapeTown.

WEINREICH, U. 1953 Languages in Contact, ColumbiaUniversity, New York.

WEINREICH, U., LABOV, W. and HERTZOG, M.I. 1971 : "EmpiricalFoundations for a Theory of Language Change." InLehmann, W.P. and Malkiel, Y. (eds.) Directions forHistorical Linguistics, Texas University Press, Austin.95-195.

WEINSTEIN, B. 1984: "Francophone: Language Planning andNational Interests." In Kramare, C., Schulz, M. andO'Bair, W. (Eds.) Language and Power, Sage, London.227-242.

WHITELEY, W. 1979 : "Sociolinguistic surveys at the nationallevel." In Pride, J .B. (Ed.) Sociolinguistic Aspects ofLearning and Teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford.44-56.

WILEY, D. AND DWYER, D. (Compilers) 1980 : "African LanguageInstruction in the United States Directions andPriorities for the 1980s." Michigan State University.

WILKINS, O.A. 1972 Linguistics in Language Teaching,Edward Arnold, London.

ZENGEL, M.S. 1972 :"Literacy as a factor in languagechange." In Fishman, J.A. (Ed.) Readings in theSociology of Language, Mouton, The Hague. 296-304.


220

OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS AND DOCUMENTS

ta) Cape Education Depactment: (i) Cicculac Lettecs:-Numbecs lOS, 164 and167 of 1975.

(ii) Syllabuses:

- Junioc SekondeceKucsus: Sillabus vicBantoetale 1974.

- pcimece Ondecwysec-diploma: SillabusXhosa (Decde Taal)1977.

- Senioc SecondacySyllabus foc Xhosa(Standacd Gcade),1976.

- Senioc SecondacySyllabus foc Xhosa(Highec Gcade),1982.

- Senioc SecondacySyllabus foc Xhosa(Standacd Gcade),1982.

(i i i) Notice and Agenda ofXhosa StudyCommittee Meeting,19 Novembec 1976.

(b) Repocts of Commissions: Committee of Inquicyon Univecsity GcantsNovembec 1919 (alsoknown as the ColemanDepactmentalCommittee of Inquicyon Requicements ofUnivecsities andColleges). In 1920Repoct of theSeccetacy focEducation, 1920 PactI. Appendix A (U.G. 57-20), CapeTimes, Cape Town.89-95.


MANUSCRIPT MATERIAL

Robectson, H.M. 1968

Council of the South AfcicanCollege (Univecsity of CapeTown) 1917

Senate of the South AfcicanCollege (now Univecsity ofCape Town) 1917

221

South African NativeAffaics Commission1903-1905 (alsoknown as the MilneeNative AffairsCommission): 1905Re!)oct of theCommission Volume 1,Cape Times, CapeTown.

History of theUniversity of CapeTown (unpublished),Chaptec 6: 653-712,Manuscripts Dept.,University of CapeTown, Cape Town.

Minutes of theCouncil Meetings~24 Apcil and 16 May1917. ManuscciptDept., Univecsity ofCape Town, CapeTown.

Memocandum on Chairof Bantu Languages,(submitted toCouncil on 17 May1917), ManuscriptsDept., Universityof Cape Town, CapeTown.


Documents

l~.~,~n -B 11D